I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 
tWW' ■■ ipsogu Jfo - t 



ij 



J EXITED STATES OF AMERICA.* 



1 






LIFE 



OF 



BLESSED REGINALD 



OP 



ST. GILES, O. P. 



TRANSLATED BY A DOMINICAN NUN. 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

very rev. j. a. rotchford, o.p., provincial of 

st. Joseph's Dominican province, in 

the united states. 



WESTCHESTER, N. Y.: 

PRINTED AT THE BOYS' PROTECTORY, WEST CHESTER. 
1877. 









' 



3^*705 



The Library 
op Congress 

washington 



Entered according- to Act of Congress, in the year 1877, by 

KEV. J. C. O'MAHONY, O. P., 

In the Clerk's Office of the Librarian ol Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



DECLARATION OF THE AUTHOR. 

Conformably to apostolic constitutions, 
we declare that, in giving to Reginald the 
title of Blessed,* and in speaking of his 
fame, after so many other biographers, we 
do not intend to overstep the judgment of 
the Holy See, but remain humbly submis- 
sive in mind and heart to its decrees. 



APPROBATION OF THE ORDER. 

We have read and examined, by com- 
mand of the Very Rev. Father Provincial 
of the Province of France, the Life of 
Blessed Reginald of St. Giles, by Rev. Fr. 
Ceslas Bayonne, Lector of Sacred Theology. 
This Life, already written several times, at 
different epochs, either on account of the 
celebrity of the person, or the devotion 

* Since the above was written, the Church has declared Reginald 
Blessed. 



and love he has ever inspired, now offers a 
new charm and a particular interest in the 
numberless unpublished documents with 
which it is enriched. We heartily approve 
of the work, which will enhance the glory 
of one of the most illustrious disciples of 
St. Dominic, by contributing to the confir- 
mation of his renown, and the edification 
of the faithful. 

Given at Dijon, September 24th, 1871. 

Br. Paul Pardieu, Lector of Sacred Theology. 
Br. Paul Monjardet, Preacher-General. 

Imprimatur: 

Br. Bernardus Chocarne, Prior-Provincial. 

Paris, September 27th, 1871. 



INTRODUCTION. 



No human organization honors and 
teaches the heart as the Catholic Church. 
By the divine faith which she inculcates, 
she ennobles every emotion of man, regulates 
the natural passions, and shadows in part, by 
her children on earth, the perfect life of Jesus 
Christ. Her mission on earth is teaching ; 
and man, in every age, bears evidence of her 
magnificent capacity for the accomplish- 
ment of this duty. What age, since she 
sprang into existence, has she not indelibly 
inscribed on the hearts of the people the 
most sublime virtues? What age in which 
her apostles did not travel into unknown 
and barbarous lands, to teach whatsoever 
the Saviour had commanded? When did 
her theologians and philosophers not shine 
as the sun amidst the darkness of error and 



VI INTRODUCTION. 

superstition ? When did her saints and mar- 
tyrs not portray, as the lily among thorns, 
the beauty of virtue? Yes; her footprints 
of peace, and love, and joy, are marked in 
the ctibris of eighteen hundred years ; and 
to-day, as charming as ever, she stands erect 
over the crumbling remains of honesty and 
truth, to stamp her divine effigy, "ever 
ancient and ever new," on all that is perfect 
in the civilization of the nineteenth century. 
Doomed to destruction by every tyrant, she 
has outlived the Caesars and the monarchs 
of the world. Spurned by the world, she 
has taught it a philosophy incomparably 
the grandest known to man. Agitated by 
its storms of conflicting political tendencies, 
she has proved that peace and rest are only 
found under the yoke of Christ. Truly the 
Catholic Church is the executrix of the 
will of her divine Founder. 

In the accomplishment of the task im- 
posed on the apostles, of teaching the 



INTRODUCTION. Vll 

entire world the wisdom of Christ, the re- 
ligious orders have borne the most conspicu 
ous part. Lovely offspring of a desire to 
choose the " better part," by conforming 
to a life of poverty, chastit)^ and obedience, 
the religious orders have been the defensive 
and aggressive weapons of the Church. 
They have defended the rights of the poor 
against the encroachments of the rich, 
protected the liberties of the people against 
the tyrant, and emancipated woman from 
the chains imposed by pagan civilization. 
By their vigils and labors they have pre- 
served the best efforts of Grecian and 
Roman intelligence ; and, during the dark- 
ness of many centuries, they have given 
light to the world. Amid the everlasting 
snows, on the rugged steeps of the Alps, 
their monasteries have sheltered the way- 
worn pilgrim ; and in the fertile valleys of 
France, Italy and Spain, they have erected 
their churches and convents, where the 



Vlll INTRODUCTION. 

vesper and matin hymns alternated in 
majestic strains with the lessons of unerring 
truths. Ireland, in the age of her splendor, 
knew the religious orders and loved them; 
and England was merry and gay before 
sacrilegious hands had robbed her abbeys, 
and desecrated her altars. 

Monasticism had its origin in the teachings 
of Jesus Christ, and was practised, amidst 
untold afflictions, in the primitive ages of 
the Church ; but it was reserved for* the 
third century to witness the mountain wil- 
dernesses of Egypt, Asia Minor, and Syria, 
largely populated with anchorites and her- 
mits. The island of Tabenna had the honor, 
under Paul of Thebes, of producing the 
germ of these religious institutions, whilst 
Pachomius drew up a rule for the monks 
(A. D. 340), which made the waters of the 
Nile vocal with the psalmody of a thousand 
monks. Then came Ammon, Macarius, Sera- 
pion, and hundreds of others, to find peace, 



INTRODUCTION. IX 

and study, and prayer, amidst the sands 
of the Thebaid. Then came the Monks 
of the West, and, after them, the religious 
orders, which have occupied so prominent 
a position in ameliorating the condition of 
society, that each epoch in their history is 
hallowed by the grandest triumphs for both 
God and man. 

Now appeared on the scene the saintly 
Benedict, whose illustrious Order is so in- 
timately interwoven with virtue and educa- 
tion. Monte Cassino became famous. So 
did the abbeys of Cluny, Camaldoli, and 
Vallambrosa. Then came forth from the 
convent of Citeaux the great Saint Bernard, 
illustrious as a doctor of the Church, re- 
nowned as a preacher of the Crusades, and 
sanctified by a life of wondrous self-abnega- 
tion. His emaciated and haggard frame, 
the sublime penalty of his heroic penances, 
formed a striking contrast with his in- 
domitable energy of soul. He^ founded 



X INTRODUCTION. 

Clairvaux, and the gorge near which it 
was erected became famous in history and 
sacred song. Thirty-five monasteries in 
France, ten in England and Ireland, several 
in Flanders, Italy, and Germany, and one 
even in Denmark, attested the wonderful 
ability of his soul, the grandeur of his faith, 
and his love for theological truth. 

Monachism is, indeed, endowed with a 
vitality altogether supernatural. It lived 
and flourished amidst storms which de- 
stroyed human institutions ; and to-day it is 
as vigorous in disseminating truth as it was 
formerly in protecting it. When Goth, Visi- 
goth, and Vandal had successively stalked, 
in easy triumph, over the ruins of the Roman 
empire, a baleful darkness mantled the earth, 
save where the hallowed light of the monas- 
tery had dispelled the gloom. Empires 
and republics have finished their history, 
but monasticism is only begun. Cer- 
tain forms of it may have perished with the 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

reasons which gave them origin, but the life, 
the soul, the principle, remains. Banished 
by tyranny from the Old World, the monks 
are again erecting their monasteries in the 
New. Nor will America fail to shield them 
under the protection of her civil and re- 
ligious liberty. They will go on increasing, 
from day to day, until thousands of monas- 
teries, vocal with hymns of joy, will afford 
sweet asylums for the feverish hearts of our 
countrymen. Oh, could we but hasten the 
auspicious day to see the freemen of our 
land slaking their thirst at the fountains of 
truth, and finding peace and rest for their 
souls ! 

The prevailing vices are disobedience, love 
of riches, and impurity. These sap the fun- 
damental principles of religion, do not per- 
mit the necessary harmony to exist between 
the intelligent wealthy and laboring classes, 
and the sad consequences are a terrible 
disorganization of society. To stem this tor- 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

rent of abuse, daily becoming more formid- 
able, it is necessary to cut off the streams 
which supply it. The infinite Lover of men 
has taught us the means in the evangelical 
counsels, namely : obedience, chastity, and 
voluntary poverty. Eliminate those vital 
principles, which act as a stimulus to virtue, 
and society dies of its own rottenness ; make 
them the characteristics of the most perfect 
man, and you form a living model which 
will sway the majority to take up the cross, 
follow Christ, and thus save society. The 
Church alone, by her constant and invariable 
encouragement of monasticism, has opposed 
an effectual barrier to corruption in the 
past. The present, however, is full of dis- 
couragement, on account of the vices which 
defraud the inheritance of Christ of its 
proper fruits. The axe, therefore, of volun- 
tary poverty, chastity, and obedience, must 
be applied to the root of the world's 
affections ; monasticism must be encouraged ; 



INTRODUCTION. xill 

the hymn of divine praise must resound in 
our forests ; the prayer of the monk must 
strike at the gates of heaven, from the 
summits of our highest mountains ; and our 
fertile valleys and chaste rivers must invite 
the world-worn pilgrim to peace and calm- 
ness in well-selected monasteries. 

Monachism was contained in the maxims 
of Christ, practised in the catacombs and in 
the desert, became formal by law in the 
third and fourth centuries, has been the 
protecting arm of civilization ever since, and 
will continue, in some form, the glory of the 
Church, and the protector of civil society. 
Its external appearances may change, but its 
vital principle must endure to the end. 

But monasticism, in ks purely contempla- 
tive form, in the fastnesses of mountains, in 
the deserts, and on the outskirts of civiliza- 
tion, is no proper athlete to fight the gigan- 
tic spirit of the world. Its passiveness was 
strong enough, indeed, to shelter millions 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

from the storms of a wintry and barren civili- 
zation, but its energies were not sufficiently 
aggressive to control the disturbing moral 
elements of the time. The age of instability 
found monachism happy, peaceful, intelli- 
gent, and industrious, and that age recog- 
nized in it the loveliest child of the Church. 
But the world never rests ; it is ever strong 
and aggressive. It wielded so extraordinary 
a power in the thirteenth century, that it bid 
fair to destroy all that the monks had saved 
of religious repose, of science and art. The 
contemplative, however, saw from the tur- 
rets of his mountain home the contest wax- 
ing strong and valiant in the plains below ; 
he saw the antagonism then commencing 
between reason and faith ; saw the impene- 
trable mysticism of Egypt introduced into 
European life by the Crusades; saw the pride 
and simony of ecclesiastics; saw his* own 
monastery, grown wealthy by the charity 
of the faithful, become an object of envy to 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

the world ; saw the rationalism which the 
cosmopolitan life of the universities was 
engendering ; saw the offensive Albigensian 
heresy erecting its formidable head in the 
midst of society, — saw, in a word, that the 
era of passive quietude had gone, and then 
prepared the great aggressive arms by which 
the Church of God has ever since asserted 
the positive doctrines of Christ to the people, 
and won for the world, by unflagging ac- 
tivity in works of virtue and education, the 
civilization of the present day. 

As the thirty years of the hidden life of 
our divine Lord on earth were preparatory 
to his three years of executive mission, so 
were the principles of rest, of truth, and 
prayer, in the monastic life necessary to form 
those spiritual athletes who, by their prowess 
and indomitable energy in every age, have 
marked an epoch in the history of the world. 

Grand, glorious, and effective amidst the 
renewed activity of society, arose the great 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

mendicant orders. As their philosophy was 
nurtured in the blood of the cross, so has 
their history been written in every land by 
the blood of their children. Each of the 
numerous orders which then sprang into ex- 
istence, had some special patrons of sanctity 
and intelligence. Those of St. Francis of 
Assisium and St. Dominic of Guzman show, 
however, so conspicuously above them all, 
that their brilliancy paled the lesser lights 
around them, and shed their effulgence even 
unto the virgin forests of America, on the 
rays of poverty, chastity, and obedience. 
Twin brothers in the school of crucifixion, 
they transfigured the world. Born in the 
thirteenth century, they are not yet aged in 
the nineteenth, and it is probable they will 
only have ended their days with the last 
records of man on earth. Uniting the spirit 
of contemplation to a superhuman activity, 
they carried the cross into every zone ; they 
excelled as professors in the university; they 



INTRODUCTION. XV11 

surpassed the laity in art and science, and 
afforded, by their constitutions, systems of 
liberty which have produced, as the acorn 
does the oak, the grand principles on which 
our republic is founded. 

St. Francis was born at Assisi. He estab- 
lished his order in 1209. It was confirmed 
the following year by Pope Innocent III. 
In the subsequent ten years, five thousand 
and more followers had volunteered to 
practise the poverty for which the saint was 
remarkable. Fifty years later, the order 
had become so prolific, that the number 
of his followers (two hundred thousand) 
seems almost incredible. The sanctity of 
the order was not less astonishing. Con- 
fessors, martyrs, and missionaries, were 
numerous. Its professors, like Scotus and 
Bonaventure, were most distinguished; and, 
in a word, the Seraphic Order has been 
unsurpassed in the walks of religious life. 
First among the missionaries to preach the 



XVU1 INTRODUCTION. 

ineffable consolation of religion to the wild 
natives of America, where they continue, as 
in the past, to reap abundant fruits in this 
beautiful vineyard of the Lord. 

We now approach, with mingled feelings 
of love and awe, the chivalrous Order of 
St. Dominic ; with love, because, shielded in 
tender youth under its time-honored mantle, 
we find, as passing beyond the meridian of 
life, its symmetry and comeliness daily be- 
coming more perfect; with awe, because 
the majesty of its history, the perfection of 
its schools, and the grandeur of its freedom, 
are an unequivocal proof of the durability 
of republican institutions. Its history is 
established in the martyrdom of its children, 
under every sun ; its philosophy and theo- 
logy are the standards of excellence in the 
schools of the Church, even at the present 
day ; and its constitutions, ever guaranteeing 
the most perfect freedom to its subjects, 
have, unlike the laws of other institutes, 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

undergone no specific change. His Emi- 
nence, Edward Cardinal Manning, the Arch- 
bishop of Westminster, testifies to the truth 
of this proposition, in the following beautiful 
words : " Among the many and wonderful 
creations of the Catholic Church, the Order 
of Friars Preachers has a character peculiar 
to itself. The Orders of St. Benedict and 
St. Francis have thrown out many various 
offshoots from the old stem ; the Order of 
St. Dominic has continued always compact 
and self-contained. For six hundred years 
it has retained its unity. This fidelity to 
its original type is not, however, from 
a lifeless sterility, but from the singular 
precision in its discipline and its tradition/' 
Its monasticism is so judiciously interwoven 
with the apostolic spirit, that the one is 
immeasurably advanced by the other. Its 
governmental code is republican in form, and 
the subject enjoys a voice in the election of 
his superior. The master-general, presiding 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

over the entire order, is chosen by electors 
from each province ; the same republicanism 
is manifested in the election of provincials, 
priors, and other officers, and a second term 
is not permitted, save after the lapse of a 
number of years. The law generally favors 
the subject, and makes of the superior a pub- 
lic servant, whose greatest prerogative is to 
execute the laws, and not his own caprice. 
The checks against arbitrary authority on 
the one side, and against unlimited de- 
mocracy on the other, are so admirably 
adjusted, that serious misunderstandings are 
almost impossible. Proper tribunals are 
established for the adjudication of important 
affairs, and even ejection from office, after 
impeachment, is possible. Fasting and 
abstinence, choral duties, and contemplation, 
form the cement by which this extensive 
freedom of the will is reduced to the yoke 
of Christ. For prudential reasons, dispensa. 
tions are permitted by law ; and the law 



INTRODUCTION. XXI 

itself, except in essentials, binds not under 
sin. In a word, there is no constitution ex- 
tant to-day more perfect than this creation 
of the thirteenth century ; and notwithstand- 
ing the accumulated legislation of six hun- 
dred years, it is as unique in its form at 
the present time, as it was in the days of 
its greatest glory. Its essential government 
has never changed, and its jurisprudence has 
been the special admiration of its free-born 
American children. In fact the constitu- 
tion of the United States is so analogous to 
that of the Dominicans, that it would not be 
rash to assert that the immortal Thomas 
Jefferson had, directly or indirectly, been 
conversant with this perfect system of hu- 
man law. Problematical, however, as this 
opinion may be, it is certain that the order 
has produced illustrious sons in the cause of 
human freedom, and has engendered and 
protected the republics of Italy and South 
America. Confessors of kings and queens, 



XX11 INTRODUCTION. 

they have defended the subject from injus- 
tice ; advisers in the court of Ferdinand and 
Isabella, they knew, like Columbus, of a land 
beyond the sea, and obtained for the chival 
rous navigator the means of accomplishing 
its discovery ; professors of theology, of phil- 
osophy and canon-law, they have taught that 
the best form of goverment for man is that 
which is erected on the consent of the gov- 
erned. Monastic in discipline, they have 
inscribed in the history of canonization four- 
teen of their most remarkable children, and 
they offer numberless blessed to the hom- 
age of the faithful. Apostolic in spirit, 
they have lived in the tents of the Arab, 
chanted divine praises in the jungles of 
Tartary, and have borne the '• burden and 
the heats of the day " under every sun. But 
blood speaks the history of the aposrolate : 
and no land exists which has not been 
enriched by the blood of the white-robed 
friar. Incredible as it may appear, thirteen 



INTRODUCTION. XX111 

thousand three hundred and seventy of 
these cavaliers of the cross suffered martyr- 
dom in one century (1234-1 334). Other cen- 
turies form no exception to this astounding 
martyrology. Indeed the entire world has 
felt the throbbing of a pulse created by 
the generous Dominican heart. But we 
dare not delay. We mention the name of 
St. Thomas, " the angel of the schools," and 
he has no peer. We name Albertus Mag- 
nus, his preceptor, and we feel ourselves in 
the presence of a giant in natural and 
divine science. St. Hyacinthe, the patron 
of unhappy Poland, has been unsurpassed 
in missionary enterprise ; and St. Vincent 
Ferrer and St. Louis Bertrand have been 
his equals. 

In poetry, whilst the author of the litur- 
gical hymns, Adoro te> Pange lingua ', Verbum 
Supernum^ and Lauda Swn, would have been 
held in special benediction to the end of 
time for their merits alone, it is not the less 






XXIV INTRODUCTION. 

certain that the Dies Ir<2< the greatest lyric 

of modern times, and composed by the 
Dominican Cardinal, Latino Malebranca, 
will render the order indelible in the minds 
of men as long as its lugubrious strains shall 
announce the Christian death. Such songs 
are the standard of Christian poesy, and 
they are the offspring of monastic contem- 
plation. 

In painting, the friars were not less 
illustrious. Blessed John Dominic, who 
bore so conspicuous a part in destroying 
the terrible schism of the West, and St. 
Antoninus, toe mod f el of bishops, the 
author of the first complete history of the 
world, the great canonist and theologian, 
not only gave it their high sanction and 
encouragement, but took a practical part in 
the advancement of the art. Savonarola, 
the distinguished lover of republics, the 
hater of iniquity and tyranny: the martyr 
in defence of Florentine liberty ; the saintly 



INTRODUCTION. XXV 

embodiment of monastic humility and apos- 
tolic courage ; the man who had the indomi- 
table energy to stand almost alone amidst 
universal corruption as the champion of 
Christian truth and virtue ; who conceived 
the beautiful idea of having no king in Flor- 
ence, except the Blessed Jesus in the Holy 
Eucharist ; who reformed the morals of that 
city, and who would have reformed the 
world, thus averting the corroding revolu- 
tion of the sixteenth century, had a Gregory 
the Great or a Pius the Ninth been the 
then representatives of Christ on earth: — yes, 
Savonarola was tortured, and hung, and 
burnt in the cause of freedom and truth, but 
his ashes were not thrown upon the waters 
of the Arno before his immortal mind had 
established a school of painting which, ever 
since, has elicited the admiration of the 
world. The Friars, Angelico, Bartolomeo, 
Beneditto, Giovanni, have shed an aureola 
of glory upon the order. In architecture, 



XXVI INTRODUCTION*. 

behold Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro. and you 
see the builders of that beautiful Church of 
Santa Maria Novella. \v the great 

Michael Aiigelo was accustomed to resort 
for prayer and ar:is::c inspi In a 

word, theology, philosophy, biblical learn- 
ing, missionary life, and the arts and 
sciences, have found no grea:er j atrons than 
followers of St. Dominic; and Balmes 
remarked that, "if the illustrious Spaniard, 
St. Dominic de Guzman, and the wonderful 
man of Assisi did not occupy a place on our 
altars, there to receive the veneration of the 
faithful for their eminent sanctity, they 
would deserve to have statues raised to th : : 
by the gratitude of society and humanity." 
This free institute has special claims to 
the homage of Americans, and should awa- 
ken their serious thoughts. It has nurtured, 
amid the wild vicissitudes o: the last six cen- 
turies, a progeny of religious freemen, whose 
bold, yet humble, lives have challenged 



INTRODUCTION. XXVll 

the admiration of mankind. The order 
accompanied Columbus on his perilous voy- 
age, and largely contributed, in the fifteenth 
and sixteenth centuries, to establish that 
chivalry of the sea of which he was the 
most distinguished exponent. It founded 
universities at Manilla and Lima, and estab- 
lished seats of learning and hospitals in 
every portion of South America. It defend- 
ed the cause of the Indian against Spanish 
tyranny and greed, and sheltered, beneath 
the folds of its habit, the generous heart of 
Las Casas, whose almost centenary throb- 
bings had been nobly devoted to the free- 
dom of the native tribes. His was the 
maxim that "all nations are equally free, and 
none have a right to encroach on the liberties 
of others," — a maxim, indeed, which lies at 
the foundation of our own republic, and 
which was boldly formulated in a " council 
bent on universal monarchy." Charles V 
named him protector-general of the Indians. 



XXV111 INTRODUCTION. 

At the age of ninety-two, after having 
accomplished, with trembling hand, his 
last grand effort in behalf of freedom, in a 
treatise on the M Tyranny of the Spaniards in 
the Indies/' he resigned his great soul into 
the hands of his Creator. His name is held 
in the greatest veneration to-day, and will so 
continue as long as civil and religious free- 
dom shall find advocates on earth. Las Casas, 
however, was not the only champion of the 
Indian. His confreres, Brother Julian, 
bishop of Tlascala, and the heroic Dominic 
Bertanzos, exercised almost superhuman en- 
ergy in behalf of the liberty of their fellow- 
men. In fact the entire order, both in Europe 
and America, had the glory of espousing 
the rights of the Indian ; and the future ex- 
plorer of the labors of these apostles in the 
American vineyard will establish for the ad- 
miration of mankind a heroism and chivalry 
in the cause of freedom altogether unpre- 
cedented in the annals of the human race. 



INTRODUCTION. xxix 

The freedom with which Christ has made 
us free, finds its personification in the child 
of St. Dominic. Educated deeply in the 
sublime school of the angelic doctor ; nur- 
tured by contemplation under a government 
essentially republican ; untrammelled by 
aggrandizement or hope of preferment, he 
breathes the atmosphere of liberty with keen 
desire, and is strengthened to assert, even 
by his blood, the grand truths of religion. 
Witness, for instance, Peter of Verona : at 
the supreme moment of his free soul just 
escaping from its martyred tenement of clay, 
he wrote with his finger on the sand, in his 
own blood, the victorious " Credo." Wit- 
ness the same spirit which relieved Martin 
de Porres of the chains of slavery, clothed 
him in the garb of the friar, and subsequently 
exalted him even to the honors of beatifica- 
tion. Witness the same intrepidity which 
actuated Louis Cancer, the beloved apostle 
of the Indians of South America, who, 



XXX INTRODUCTION. 

sighing for new kingdoms to conquer, en- 
tered into Florida with the Gospel, only 
to become the protomartyr of that land of 
flowers. 

The Dominican in those days was almost 
ubiquitous. Whilst Brother Gaspard of the 
Cross was the first missionary to penetrate 
the exclusive "walls" of China, at the same 
time, in the antipodes, his brother Domini- 
can was making the first exploration of the 
head waters of the Potomac. At this time, 
whilst Chili possessed forty houses and con- 
vents, the Dominicans were evangelizing 
the eastern coast of Africa, had established 
a house in Japan, and were singing divine 
psalmody amidst the perpetual snows of 
Greenland. Incredible as it may seem, 
this inhospitable land had welcomed the 
sons of St. Dominic more than a hundred 
years before Columbus was born. Their 
convent was described by Captain Nicholas 
Zahn, A. D. 1380; and there they still re- 



INTRODUCTION. XXXI 

mained praying, preaching, and studying, 
until discovered by a party of Dutch sail- 
ors, early in the seventeenth century. 

Four thousand authors of varied talents 
and of world-wide fame have graced the 
order. Four popes, and an innumerable 
array of cardinals, archbishops, and bishops, 
have given it distinction. Prolific in saints 
and martyrs, full of apostolic zeal, renowned 
in philosophy and theology, unflinching in 
its veneration for the Vicars of Jesus Christ 
on earth, admirable in its theory of demo- 
cratic government, it has outlived the up- 
heavings of revolution for more than six 
centuries, always deserving well of the 
Church and of civil society. Nor is it yet 
old or decrepit; for, if the vision of the 
mother of St. Dominic has been realized in 
the past, so is it probable that the prophecy 
of St. Teresa will be accomplished in the 
future. We have seen how the order has 
illumined the world by its intelligence : may 



XXX11 INTRODUCTION. 

we not hope that it is destined to shed its 
benign influence for religion, for freedom 
and virtue, even unto the end ? 

After Spain, Portugal, France, Germany 

and England, have cast into exile the Friars 

Preachers, and ingratitude has done its 

worst, there is springing up from the ashes 

of dismantled convents, from the blood of 

martyred thousands, a spirit of devotion 

to the Church which will astonish the 

world. This spirit, evoked in France by 

the greatest pulpit orator of the century, 

Lacordaire, has made the Friars Preachers 

renowned in this our day. Reestablished 

in the year i84i,they have already three 

provinces, over forty houses, and have 

inaugurated their missions in Mesopotamia 

and China. Belgium and England again 

rejoice at the reappearence of the historic 

habit; and Ireland, whose Iliad of woes 

brings the tear of sympathy to the eye of 

the freeman, whose faith has lived, through 



INTRODUCTION. XXX111 

the instrumentality of the Holy Rosary, 
amid the ruins of monasteries and churches, 
again sees the " Order of Truth " springing 
into active life, and producing her purest 
patriot, and the most accomplished preacher 
of the age. 

Everywhere the fortunes of the Church 
and of the order have been identified ; and 
now, as the star of the Church's glory is 
arising in majesty above the murky horizon 
of materialism in the United States, there 
may be also easily descried the humble 
beauty of its accompanying satellite, — the 
order. In America, the sons of St. Dominic 
chant the same divine office which their 
brethren sang centuries ago in the " tents 
of the Tartars, beside the rivers of Upper 
Asia." They preach in their missions the 
same eternal truths which their brother, 
St. Hyacinth, taught in the middle ages to 
Poland, to Prussia, to Bohemia, to Russia, 
to Sweden and Denmark. They study and 



XXXIV INTRODUCTION. 

teach the philosophy and theology of the 
angelic doctor; they love, as much as Sa- 
vonarola and Las Casas, the principles of 
freedom and liberty * and the octogenarian 
still lives who has borne the cross with 
vigor, and love and humility, in the vine- 
yards of Kentucky and Ohio, even as his 
brethren in the Lord had hitherto carried it 
into the very capitals of Fez and Morocco.* 
The orders, indeed, have deserved well 
of the Church of America. They have 
won the glories of the past — let the future 
be resplendent with their triumphs. A life 
conformable to the evangelical counsels 
must be encouraged, or the day of the con- 
version of the United States to the saving 
truths of religion must be indefinitely post- 
poned. Nor have we yet mentioned the 
grandest successes of the life of poverty, 

* The allusion here is to the Very Rev. N. D. Young, the 
third Provincial of the Dominicans in the United States. 
He is a descendant of the first Catholics of Maryland, and 
enjoys a hale old age. 



INTRODUCTION. XXXV 

chastity, and obedience. A volume could 
not unfold the lovely pictures of the great 
works of the Jesuits, Redemptorists, and 
other orders, during the last three centuries. 
Suffice it to say, that they have been so 
firmly rooted in the affections of the Church, 
and so endearingly embalmed in the hearts 
of the people, that his would be a dastard 
hand that would attempt to rob them of 
their hard-earned glory. 

Let it be hoped that the prayers of the 
faithful of the United States shall ascend to 
the eternal throne, in behalf of the religious 
orders ; that the Holy Ghost may continue 
calling to the foot of the cross the best 
native and adopted sons of Columbia, so 
that monasticism, in the coming years, may 
be as pregnant with the glory and freedom 
of Christ as the gone years have been pro- 
lific in martyrs and heroes. Such aspira- 
tions fill the mind of the writer, and form 
his apology tor introducing to the grand 



INTRODUCTIC 

rerub.ic :>: tbe nineteen:- :er.:ury :::e :: the 

: : nte \ ■-_ .:•;.-. .:: :: the :":ur. f er ::' the great 

Dominican republic of the thirteenth. 

Dear Reginald of St. Giles, thou iabrica- 

tor, under inspiration, of the unique habit of 

the Fninrs Frenehers. tn::: gr— teit i~::.z 

the :nn:n;sts ~ni the : '.: r hhs ::" thy fiy ! 

now that, after six hundred years, thou hast 

been neb.aren Blissiz by the inrb.ll: 

Vienr ::' Znris: :n enrtn. miy -.ve net :~- 

nl:re tnee t: bless thy children ::" this nnt.: 
_ •„ - - . ■_ - v — — - T - - - — . - ~, ~ * ~ ^ ■ - * - - . 

Cnuren '. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Declaration of the Author „ . iii 

Approbation of the Order • . . .iii 

Introduction ...... v 

CHAPTER I. 

St. Giles; its origin. — Grandeur of the city and abbey 
at the end of the thirteenth century. — Birth, youth, 
and education of Reginald . . , .1 

CHAPTER II. 

The University of Paris, at the commencement of the 
thirteenth century; its organization, its schools, mas- 
ters and students. — Reginald studies the human and 
divine sciences. — Teaches canon -law, and is elected 
Dean of St. Aignan of Orleans . . • 15 

CHAPTER III. 

Reginald Dean of the Collegiate of St. Aignan ; his 
prudence, wisdom, and goodness. — He gives him- 
self to preaching, and desires to embrace voluntary 



XXXV111 CONTENTS. 

PAGE, 

poverty and an apostolic life. — State of the Church 
in the thirteenth century. — Mission of the Friars 
Preachers and Friars Minors . . . .30 

CHAPTER IV. 

The pilgrimage of Reginald and the Bishop of Orleans 
to Rome. — Meeting of Reginald and Dominic. — His 
illness, vision, and miraculous cure. — Was this vision 
the principle and cause of the change of the habit 
of the Friars Preachers . . . .48 

CHAPTER V. 

The clothing and profession of Reginald in the Convent 
of St. Sixtus. — His pilgrimage to Jerusalem. — Return- 
ing to Rome, he is sent as vicar of St. Dominic to 
Bologna. — The wonderful success of his preaching. — 
Origin and progress of the Convent of St. Nicholas. — 
Legends. — St. Dominic at Bologna. — Blessed Diana 
d'Andalo. — Brother Reginald is sent to Paris . 63 

CHAPTER VI. 

Foundation and progress of the Convent of St. James. — 
Arrival of Reginald in Paris. — * Apostolic letters to 
the Prior and Friars of St. James's. — Success of 
the preaching of Reginald. — He receives the vows 
of Jourdain de Saxe and of his friend, Henry of 
Cologne. — His illness and death. — His burial in the 
monastery of Notre Dame des Champs . • 84 



CONTENTS. XXXIX 

CHAPTER VII. 

PAGE. 

The veneration of Blessed Reginald; its authenticity, 
antiquity, and continuity. — Proofs and testimonies . 104 

Authors consulted . 129 

Documents. • • • . • 130 



LIFE OF 

BLESSED REGINALD 

OF ST. GILES. 



CHAPTER I. 

St. Giles; its origin. — Grandeur of the city and abbey, at 
the end of the thirteenth century. — Birth, Youth, and Edu- 
cation, of Reginald. 

(1175-1193.) 
Not far from the Rhone, and near the shores of 
the Mediterranean, on the confines of Provence and 
of Languedoc, stands a little village, humble and 
obscure to-day, but formerly renowned and flourish- 
ing, which bears the name of St. Giles. This was 
the birthplace of Blessed Reginald, commonly 
called, in our annals, Reginald, Regnier, or Regnaud 
of St. Giles. At the present day the village presents 
only the ruins of its antique splendor. Every morn- 
ing its inhabitants disperse through the fields, or on 
the neighboring hills, in agricultural pursuits ; the 
village seems wholly abandoned. The stranger, 
wandering through its winding and rising streets, 
recalls with difficulty the fact that it played an im- 



2 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

portant part in the history of the Crusades. Never- 
theless, an idea of its past grandeur presents itself 
at the view of the ancient ramparts, and, above all, 
of the old basilica. There, as in many other 
places, the abbey-church stands before him as the 
centre of the city that has risen around it, and as 
the hearthstone where all the local traditions are 
preserved. 

St. Giles, in effect, owes its origin to its abbey, 
one of the most celebrated of the Order of St. 
Benedict. It was founded, toward the end of the 
seventh centuiy, by a pious solitary, named Egidius, 
originally of Athens, but who came to Provence in 
the footsteps of the first apostles of Gaul. An 
invalid, whom he had cured by his prayers, wished 
to publish his name. Egidius hastened to leave 
this place, and seek a more hidden retreat. In 
his flight he met a venerable solitary, an Athenian, 
whose disciple and companion he became, named 
Veredemas. The shepherd that guards his flocks 
on the rugged hills which the Gardon waters, 
while pursuing its capricious windings, still points 
out to the pilgrim and the traveller the holy grotto 
where the two anchorets, whom God had called 
so far from their own country, lived many years, 
passing their days in prayer, penance, and soli- 
tude. The fame of their virtues and miracles 



OF ST. GILES. 3 

soon attracted the attention of the pious people 
of the neighborhood. The humility of Egidius 
was for the third time alarmed ; he bade adieu to 
Veredemas, and, leaving Roman Nimes on his right, 
and Grecian Aries, the mother of the Gauls, on his 
left, advanced into the depths of the forest which 
stretched before him. He remained there a long time, 
no one witnessing his great austerities and pious 
meditations. One day, as the forest resounded with 
unaccustomed noise, he saw, running toward him 
in fright, the hind which had nourished him with 
her milk. As he sought to protect her, his hand 
was pierced by an arrow, sent by an officer of Flavius 
Vamba, King of the Visigoths, then besieging Nimes. 
At the sight of the holy anchoret, the officers, for 
there were several, fell on their knees to ask his 
pardon. He immediately forgave, and, with his 
bleeding hand, blessed them. At their return, they 
recounted the whole adventure to Vamba, who, with 
a bishop named Aregius, hastened to visit the soli- 
tary. Moved by the modesty and wisdom of his 
replies, the king made him a gift of the whole 
neighboring valley, since called the Flavian valley, 
and begged that he would there establish a mon- 
astery. Egidius believed he heard the voice of God 
in this proposal ; numerous disciples flocked around 
him ; the monastery was rapidly built, and, eleven 



4 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

years after, he offered it in homage to the Sovereign 
Pontiff, Benedict II, who granted him the privilege 
of exemption, in a Bull dated April 26th, 685.* 
It was pillaged by the Saracens, in 719, but was 
restored as soon as Eudes d'Aquitaine drove them 
back to Spain. Shortly after, Egidius, perceiving 
that his last hour had arrived, could say with the 
same joy as the prophets : " I shall die in my nest" 
He thought not of the remaining words: "My 
glory shall always be renewed, and my bow in my 
hand shall be repaired" (Job, xxix, 18-20), which 
were to be realized in his favor in the most brilliant 
manner. 

The glory he had despised during life, rested on 
his tomb, which was soon visited by numberless 
pilgrims. From the year 1044 it was placed on a 
chart by the side of St Peter's, at Rome, and St 
James' of Compostella, as one of the three great 
places of Christian pilgrimages. The monastery of 
the Flavian valley had already given birth to a city, 
St Giles, whose name was borne by all the Counts of 
Toulouse, from the time of Raymond IV, the Chris- 
tian Nestor of the First Crusade. He was known in 
history by the title of Raymond of St. Giles, which 
title he had taken in devotion to this saint, one of 
the most popular of the middle ages. The glory of 

* See Menard's "History of the Church of Kimes," page 719. 



OF ST. GILES. 5 

this city and abbey was principally reserved to the 
time of the Crusades. They had just attained this 
glory when, at the end of the twelfth century, Reginald 
was born. History tells us nothing of his infancy ; * 
nor does it inform us whether he manifested from 
his tender years any of those signs that reveal the 
future destiny of many great saints. To make up 
for this silence, let us cast a glance at the places that 
witnessed his first years, and the events contemporary 
with his youth. Perhaps we may there discover 
what was his genius, what lights illumined his mind, 
and what flames first burst from his heart. 

The germs received at his birth and baptism slow- 
ly developed under a triple influence. The child is 
initiated, in the bosom of its mother, to the joys and 
affections of the family ; as it strengthens with age, 
its native soil, with its sky, its horizon, and its re- 
membrances, instructs it in other sentiments, which 
crown in life the affections of the family, and are 
themselves crowned by those of religion. Domestic, 
local, and religious traditions are then to the soul 
of the youth what the milk of the mother is to the 
body of the infant. Every saint, like every man, is 

* The precise date of his birth is not known. We date it about the 
year 1175, considering that he died at the age of forty-five, or thereabouts, 
at the commencement of 1220. On the one hand, Jourdain de Saxe 
(Echard, loc. cit. 90) could well say of him, " Consummatus in brevi ex~ 
plevit tempora multa ; " and, on the other, the important dignities with 
which he was invested demand a certain maturity. 



O LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

formed, though by different ways, to the image of 
those who rear him, and to the resemblance of the 
times and places that witness his birth and growth. 
Now, St. Giles was not only one of the most celebrated 
places of pilgrimage, but was also one of the most 
frequented ports on the Mediterranean. A contem- 
porary author, Benjamin Tudela, who travelled 
through Languedoc about the year 1 1 70, could well 
say: "Here we see united the extremities of the 
world, many people, strangers and islanders. " At the 
end of the twelfth century it was already the principal 
port of the Crusaders. The Trinitarians and the 
Chevaliers of the Temple of St John of Jerusalem 
established themselves there shortly after their insti- 
tution. 

Here art rivalled commerce and the Crusades. 
The old church could no longer contain the ever- 
increasing crowd of pilgrims. Consequently, itself 
and two neighboring churches were torn down, and 
on their site was erected a gigantic basilica ( 1 1 16), 
which was to be the masterpiece of Byzantine art, 
then at its height Unfortunately, however, the latter 
remained unfinished; and, four centuries after, we 
find Jules II making a touching appeal to the piety 
of the faithful, in its behalf, saying that, after its 
completion, it would have no rival in the kingdom 
of France. 



OF ST. GILES. 7 

Literature and the sciences had also their repre- 
sentatives at St. Giles. From the commencement 
of the twelfth century, it possessed a school for 
grammar, rhetoric and dialectics. The beautiful 
library of the abbey was daily enriched by the master- 
pieces of antiquity, and the works of the most 
renowned doctors. The monks, faithful to Benedic- 
tine tradition, distributed with equal liberality the 
bread of the soul and of the body : alms and know- 
ledge. 

St. Giles often received within its walls the popes, 
who, driven from Rome by the revolt of their sub- 
jects, or by schism, hastened to the hospitable shores 
of France, so beautifully called by Baronius, " the 
port of Peter's bark during the storm." Gelasius II, 
in 1 1 1 8, fled before the Emperor Henry V. Innocent 
II, to whom the cardinals had said on the day of his 
election, " It is not to honor, but to sorrow, you are 
called, " was driven from Rome by the antipope, 
Anacletus, in the year 1130. Thirty years later, 
Alexander III took refuge in France, while Rome 
was agitated by Arnold of Brescia, and when Frederic 
Barbarossa domineered in Italy. Promoter of the 
Lombard League, intrepid defender of the rights of 
the Church, Alexander, from the bosom of his exile, 
raised his voice in favor of the oppressed. We see him 
espouse the cause of Thomas a Becket, Archbishop 



8 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

of Canterbury; and that of the Countess of St. Giles, 
condemned to isolation by the scandals of Raymond 
V. Thus the pilgrimages, the crusades, the arts and 
the sciences, the monks and the papacy, — in fine, all 
the glories of society and the Church, in the twelfth 
century, seemed to cast their rays on St. Giles, in 
order to make it illustrious.* We have said that no 
information of the childhood of Reginald has reached 
us. He lived too short a time in our Order, and his 
admirable humility was too closely preserved by the 
silence of our ancient chroniclers. In the midst of 
his brethren, he guarded with the profoundest secrecy 
all that concerned his life. Nevertheless, it is easy 
to form an idea of what were his impressions and 
affections, from the first dawn of reason. We love 
to represent him kneeling on the tomb of St. Giles, 
confiding to him, in the full effusion of his soul, the 
sacred deposit of his faith and virtue. We follow 
him in his pious pilgrimages to the grotto on the 
shores of the Mediterranean, where St. Egidius and 
St. Veredemas prayed together. This was the land- 
ing-place of the first apostles of Gaul, a country 
destined to be the eldest daughter of the Church. 
We hear him interrogating, with a curiosity and 



*See the excellent historical notice on St. Giles, published 
by the Abbe Teissonnier (Nimes, 1 862), from which we take 
the principal information given above. See also the history 
of the tomb of St. Giles, by the Abb6 Trichaud (Nime?, 1868 ). 



, 



OF ST. GILES. 9 

love that go hand in hand, the Chevaliers of the 
Temple of Jerusalem ; much less to learn their ex- 
ploits against the infidels, than to know of the Holy 
Land, where were accomplished the grand scenes of 
the Redemption, We see him, at a tender age, a 
pupil in the school of the abbey, as later we see St. 
Thomas at that of Monte Cassino. We know well 
that the treasure of letters was preserved by the 
Church from the destruction that menaced it at the 
time of the barbarian invasion, and was guarded by 
her for centuries, within the shadowed walls of clois- 
ters and cathedrals. The Church, at first, only thought 
of providing herself with ministers as distinguished 
for their science as for their virtue. From the ninth 
to the thirteenth century, aspirants to the priesthood 
were the only students, the monks and the bishops 
the only educators ; for the social condition in the 
West permitted no other masters, no other disciples. 
" Religion then occupied so lofty a position, that 
each family desired the consecration of, at least, one 
of its members to the service of the altar. The rich 
and the poor, the serf and the freed man, offered to 
God one of their offspring, and solicited for him the 
habit of the ecclesiastic, or the cowl of the monk. 
Always faithful to her noble traditions, the Church 
opened her ranks to children of all classes, without 
distinction, requiring no other recommendation than 



10 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

a calling to the ecclesiastical or religious state. The 
applicants were received at the most tender age, in 
order more easily to inculcate habits of regularity, 
and to render them flexible to the exigencies of dis- 
cipline. Reasonably persuaded that there is nothing 
insignificant when it relates to the sacred state of 
childhood, the tutors of ecclesiastics and the monks 
occupied themselves with details the most minute, 
and guarded the conduct of their pupils with inge- 
nious precaution. No son of royal blood was sur- 
rounded in his palace with more tender care, than was 
the least of the infant pupils in the monasteries.'"* 

The "Doctrinale Puerorum" 2l work of the twelfth 
century, gives the most "exact ideas of the method 
of teaching followed at that epoch, and thus informs 
us how the young Reginald was trained at the Abbey 
of St Giles : "About the age of seven the child 
learned to read and write, and soon passed to the 
study of some Latin grammar, such as Domat, 
Priscian, or Didyme. As the greater number of the 
pupils could not procure for themselves the neces- 
sary works, the tutors were often obliged to dictate 
the general rules, or engrave them on the memory 
by frequent repetition. They dictated in fragments, 
and immediately explained the subject. As soon 

♦ u Episcopal and Monastic Schools of the West," part ii, chap. 4. 
Paris, 1866. 



OF ST. GILES. II 

as the child possessed the first principles of Latin, in 
order to fortify his piety, and enable him to take part 
in the public psalmody of the Church, the Psalter 
was given him, to commit to memory. From the 
years of nine to twelve he read the fables of ^Esop, 
the sentences of Cato the moralist, and the poetry of 
Theodulus, a poet of the tenth century, who had sung 
the prodigies of the Old Testament, in verse worthy 
of ancient art. He then studied fragments from 
Seneca, Ovid, Perseus, Horace, and, above all, the 
works of Lucan, Statius and Virgil. After this vast 
preparation the youthful student passed to the other 
liberal arts of rhetoric and logic, the principles of 
which he drew from the thoughtful reading of 
Cicero, Quintilian, and Aristotle."* The Middle 
Age regarded antiquity as the portal to the true, 
the beautiful, and the good. The doctors sought, 
in classic authors, not so much the beauties of form, 
which the Fathers of the Church had seized upon for 
the defence and propagation of Christianity, as those 
natural truths discovered by reason in the study of 
man and nature. This was for them a wonderful 
foothold on the knowledge of God. " Although 
deprived of the lights of revelation," says Vincent 
de Beauvoir, " they spoke none the less admirably of 
the Creator and the creature, of vice and virtue ; 

* Dr. Sighart, " Life of Albert the Great," page 12. Paris. 



12 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

they knew a great number of truths which faith, as 
well as reason, loudly proclaims." In other respects, 
the programme of studies was much the same as 
that of the Roman schools, from the time of Cassio- 
dorus : that is to say, the Trivium, which embraced 
grammar, rhetoric and dialectics; and the Quad- 
rivium, which comprehended music, arithmetic, 
geometry and astronomy. These were the seven 
degrees by which they rose from human to divine 
science ; and Alcuin, versed in the Sacred Scriptures, 
hesitated not to call them the ' ' seven columns raised 
by Wisdom, to sustain and ornament her royal pal- 
ace." Theodolf, Bishop of Orleans, described them 
in Latin distichs, under the form of a symbolical 
tree, which has since been in general use in the 
cloisters ; for the monks, as well as we, know that, 
to reach the intellect, it is first necessary to speak to 
the eyes and the imagination. Look for a moment 
at this tree of science, planted on the terrestrial 
globe. Grammar, as the basis of all human know- 
ledge, and holding a rod in her hand, is seated at 
the foot. At the top is placed Philosophy, the queen 
of science, her forehead ornamented with a diadem, 
and numberless branches springing from her bosom. 
Rhetoric, in the attitude of speaking, stands at the 
right, with unfolded wings, and the hand extended. 
At the left, with bent brow, and holding a serpent, 



OF ST. GILES. 13 

the symbol of prudence, Dialectics meditates in 
silence. Here we find Music, bearing a lyre, and a 
flute of nine pipes ; there, Geometry, who measures 
with her compass the five zones of the world ; and, 
a little farther, Astronomy, pointing out the twelve 
signs of the zodiac. The monks of St. Giles taught 
all these sciences. Like Alcuin, in his school of 
St. Martin of Tours, they gave to some the honey of 
the sacred writings, to others the wine of antiquity, 
whilst they nourished the younger with the fruits of 
grammar, and kindled the flames of astronomy for 
the more advanced. 

The young Reginald was thus disciplined in 
their school. Before the world could contaminate 
this child, like Samuel, he was confided to the 
teachings of the Church, to the end that a salutary 
influence might be exercised over his yet tender 
heart. Resting on this solid foundation, he grew 
in age and wisdom, rising daily to a higher degree 
of virtue. The life of these monks, however, was 
not to be his. From his childhood he felt that he 
was born to be an apostle. It is our belief that this 
vocation was inspired by the remembrance of the 
preaching of St. Bernard, in Languedoc, against the 
Vaudois and Albigenses who, restrained for a mo- 
ment, again renewed their attacks. The Council 
of Lateran, held in 11 80, commanded all the faith- 



14 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

fill courageously to oppose the heretics, who, under 
the name of Cathari or Paterini, had so fortified them- 
selves in Gascony, Alby and Toulouse, as to 
organize an open revolt. 

Such was the education of the youthful Reginald ; 
such the times and the places in which he was born 
and lived. The scenes of his youth left an indeli- 
ble impression upon his mind, and here he traced 
the programme of his whole life. We see him 
become, by turns, a student and doctor, at the 
University of Paris ; dean of the Collegiate of St, 
Aignan, at Orleans ; afterward a pilgrim to Jerusa- 
lem, and, finally, an apostle and friar preacher at 
Bologna and Paris. 



OF ST. GILES. 15 



CHAPTER II. 

The University of Paris, at the commencement of the thir- 
teenth century ; its organization, its schools, masters and 
students — Reginald studies the human and divine sciences 
— teaches canon-law, and is elected Dean of St. Aignan of 
Orleans. 

(1193-1211.) 
It was about the year 11 93 that Reginald, at the 
age of eighteen, came to Paris to attend the high 
schools, and, under renowned masters, to perfect 
himself in the sciences. Paris had just undergone one 
of those memorable transformations which each time 
rendered her the chief city of Europe. Her present 
glory was due to the courageous initiative of Mau- 
rice de Sully, a great bishop, and Philip Augustus, 
a great king. In the centre of the city we see the 
Church of Notre Dame rearing her lofty dome, and 
around the town a vast enclosure flanked with towers, 
and surmounted by a crenellated parapet 

The schools founded by Charlemagne had also 
undergone a transformation. For half a century 
they had been united in a vast and free association, 
which the charters began to designate under the 
imposing title of ' ' Universitas scholarum." Their 
celebrity had spread over all Europe. As early as the 
reign of Louis VII, pupils came from every quarter. 



1 6 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

Magistrates, and even princes, often wrote to the 
king to recommend their relatives, their friends, 
or their citizens. The Senate of Rome begged him 
to take under his protection the youth of that city 
who came to study sacred science at the University 
of Paris, the bulwark of Catholic faith, The uni- 
versity could boast of the four faculties : theology, 
law, medicine, and the arts. The faculty of the 
arts had the privilege of electing, from among its 
masters, the rector or supreme chief of the corpora- 
tion. This comprised the four nations of France 
Picardy, Normandy, and Germany, each divided 
into several provinces, and each having at its head 
an attorney, always accompanied by his beadle. 
The professors could not open a course of study 
without having obtained license from the chancellor 
of the cathedral, called the scholastic, or scholar. 
In 1203, Innocent III sanctioned the institution, 
granting it an attorney-general, who, in lawsuits, was 
to represent the university. Six years later, he 
approved the statutes which established the costumes 
of the different members, regulated the lessons of 
the professors, as also the exercises of the students, 
and determined the amount each should contribute 
toward funerals and suffrages for the dead.* 

* Crevier, " History of the University," book i; and Du Boulay, loc. 
cit. i, p. 250; iii, p. 557- 



OF ST. GILES. 17 

The most celebrated professors of Europe were 
ambitious to teach at Paris, where, "as at Athens," 
say contemporary writers, ' * the most learned were 
the most honored. 5 ' The schools, like their masters, 
rivalled each other, and, if several cities could dis- 
pute the palm with Paris in teaching the sciences, 
she remained without a rival in teaching theology 
and the arts. The poets of the time sung of her as 
the source of all wisdom, the tree of science in the 
terrestrial paradise, the candlestick in the house of 
the Lord. In 11 50, Don Philip, Abbot of the Mon- 
astery of Good Hope, in the diocese of Cambrai, 
wrote to a young friend in the following terms : — 

" As the queen of Saba went to Solomon, that.she 
might assure herself of all she had heard of his great 
wisdom, so you, impelled by the love of science, 
have gone to Paris, and have there found what so 
many have ardently desired : a mimic Jerusalem. 
There, indeed, David chants his inspired psalms, on 
his harp of ten strings ; there Isaias unfolds the mys- 
teries of his oracles ; there all the prophets blend 
their voices in a ravishing concert ; there, in fine, 
the gates of science open to all who knock. There 
clerics hasten in such great numbers, as to rival 
the immense crowd of laymen. Happy city ! where 
holy books are studied with a lofty zeal, where pro- 
found mysteries are taught under the influence of 



1 8 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

the same divine flame that enlightens the angelic 
spirits; where the ardor of the students is so great, 
and the science of the Scriptures so grand, as to 
merit to be called another Cariatsepher — "city of 
letters."* 

The students, commonly called clerics, were re- 
cruited from all the provinces, and from all classes, 
but particularly from among the more advanced 
pupils of the episcopal and monastic schools. On 
arriving at Paris they grouped themselves according 
to their nationalities, which were not tardy in being 
characterized by cant titles. They, as well as their 
masters, enjoyed numerous franchises. From the 
time of the contest between the German students 
and the inhabitants of the suburbs of St. Marcel, it 
was decreed by a royal act, the first known in history, 
in favor of the university, that no arrest should be 
made amongst them, except in case of flagrant 
crime, and then only by the king's officers. In 
this way they were placed under the ecclesiastical 
authority to which solely they belonged. The 
courses were gratuitous to the poor — alms and 
pious donations furnished their sustenance. Many 
supported themselves by the remunerations they 
received, either by becoming, as Maurice de Sully 
had lately been, servants to the richer clerics, or by 

* Cited by Du Boulay, p. 252. 



OF ST. GILES. 19 

carrying holy water on Sunday to private houses, 
according to the Gallican custom. 

Each student, alone or with a companion, lived in 
a retired room at an inn, generally having no other 
treasure than a small collection of books and rolls 
of parchment. It may easily be understood that 
all these students had not the same ardor for study. 
"The good student," said Robert de Courcon, at a 
later period, "should every evening walk on the 
banks of the Seine, and there repeat or say over 
his lesson ; but a too great number hasten to the 
students' play-ground, and there give themselves up 
to noisy games, often even to bloody quarrels with 
the citizens of that quarter, and the religious of St. 
Germain. Some are so inconstant and careless that, 
even under able masters, they attain to nothing. 
They go from chair to chair, constantly changing 
courses and books, following the classes in winter, 
and withdrawing in summer. Some simply cling 
to the title of pupils, or to the revenues consecrated 
by the Church for the support of poor students, and 
are seated on the benches once or twice a week." 
"Many there," says Felix Faure, "dissipate in idle- 
ness and disorder the hard-earned money which 
parents have furnished, to put them in a position to 
acquire fame and honor." At his arrival, Reginald 
took his place in the Gallican nation, among the 



20 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

students of the province of Bourges, which com- 
prised the south of France, and the whole of Spain 
and Italy. He did not desire to resemble those 
who esteemed themselves commendable for having 
come to Paris, and not for having there acquired 
profound knowledge. He was among those who, 
impelled by love of science, quitted their country 
for the schools of the university, suffering un- 
numbered hardships and dangers, and preferring the 
frugal life led there to that of pleasure and delights 
enjoyed by youth under the paternal roof. More- 
over, that period, in particular, was favorable to 
study. The schools of Paris possessed, besides the 
"Organon," the principal works of Aristotle, recently 
found, natural philosophy, psychology, ethics, gov- 
ernment and metaphysics. Reginald first followed 
the course of the artists who had just established 
themselves in the street Fouarre. There he studied 
logic ; but this science did not become his sole 
pursuit — it was to him only a means and an instru- 
ment : for he knew well that it would be folly for the 
ploughman to sharpen the ploughshare, and never 
sink it into the earth. He used it to preserve himself 
from grave errors, which began to be disseminated 
at the university. The works of Aristotle had 
not come to Paris in all their purity. There 
existed few versions derived from the original text ; 



OF ST. GILES. 21 

for the most part they had been greatly altered by a 
series of translations from Greek to Hebrew, from 
Hebrew to Arabian, from Arabian to Latin, and, 
above all, by the commentaries of Alexandrian phi- 
losophers, Jewish rabbis, and Mussulman doctors. 
Pantheism and materialism, in turn, penetrated into 
the schools. Masters clothed these systems in 
learned forms, and presented them as a natural 
development of peripatetic philosophy; and faith 
was soon in peril, by the application of these teach- 
ings to theology. Already had the Archbishop of 
Paris, Maurice de Sully, protested against these 
errors. Learning, in his last illness, that some 
doctors doubted of the resurrection of the body, he 
caused to be written on a scroll these words of Job, 
" I know that my Redeemer liveth, " etc. ? and ordered 
them to be placed on his breast after death, that 
all who should assist at his funeral might have a 
solemn witness of his faith and hope. In 1204 the 
Church compelled a professor of theology, Amaury 
de Bene, who was teaching new ideas, publicly to 
retract them before the university. Five years after, 
a provincial council, knowing he had retracted 
these errors only with his lips, and that the Cathari 
gathered their principal partisans from among his 
disciples, again condemned and anathematized him. 
His body was exhumed, and his ashes cast to the 



22 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

winds. The council also condemned to the flames 
the " Quaternuli ' ? of David de Dinant, and forbade, 
under pain of excommunication, teaching in public 
or private the natural philosophy of Aristotle and his 
commentators.* Morals were still more exposed 
than faith : it was much more difficult to remain 
chaste than to believe. Reginald had to redouble his 
efforts to preserve in his youth the piety and purity of 
his childhood. In truth, the life led by the students 
was far from being exemplary. All contemporary 
authors recount their disorders. Jacques de Vitry 
has left us the following description : ' ' Morals were 
then more corrupt among the students than in all 
other classes of society. As a diseased sheep infects 
the whole flock, so did the university infect its 
innumerable pupils. Counting fornication no sin, 
it debauched its people, and plunged them into an 
abyss of vice. Prostitutes surrounded all places, 
and drew after them all the students whom they 
met in their way; and if, perchance, any resisted, they 
were pursued and accused of an infamous vice. The 
same houses in which schools were held, were places 
of prostitution. Foolish and shameful extravagance 
was honored with names of distinction and liberal- 
ity ; piety, sobriety, and justice, so highly recom- 



* Jourdain's " Philosophy of St. Thomas of Aquin," i, p. 40. 
Martdne, " Thesaurus Nov. Anecdot.", iv, p. 166. 



OF ST. GILES. 23 

mended by the apostles, were styled baseness, 
avarice, and hypocrisy. "O Paris !" again cried out 
Peter de Celles, ' ' how skilful thou art in destroying 
souls; thou art the repository of vice, the hearthstone 
of every crime ; in thee the arrows of hell trans- 
pierce the hearts of the foolish. " 

Happily, religion found powerful resources against 
these scandals in the vigor of character, the univer- 
sality of faith, and the words of its ministers. St. 
Bernard, passing through the city, was invited by 
the Bishop Stephen to preach to the students ; and he 
accordingly delivered a discourse which was followed 
by many glorious conversions. A priest named 
Foulques, Cure of Neuilly-sur-Marne, was at that 
time apostle of Paris. He had preached the Crusade, 
and thundered forth against the usury brought from 
Italy into France, where it caused great ravages. 
Now he preached the reform of morals ; for this, the 
minds of the people were well prepared. Innocent 
III, seeing that Philip Augustus still refused to 
take back Queen Ingerburga, whom he had unjustly 
repudiated, had just launched forth an interdict 
against the kingdom, in order to defend and guard 
the inviolable sanctity of Christian marriage. Sor- 
row and alarm penetrated all hearts, but the priest, 
Foulques, turned them to God. When he was to 
preach, the students would say one to the other ; 



24 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

" Let us go and hear this new Paul." An immense 
multitude assembled to hear his discourses, pressing 
around him in such crowds, as to come in actual 
contact with him. Many tore off pieces of his 
clothing, as relics. One day, as he was preaching 
at the Place de Champeaux, his illiterate but austere 
words made such an impression, that many, moved 
to repentance, came barefoot, carrying disciplines in 
their hands, and falling on their knees at his feet, 
publicly confessed their sins. A great number of 
courtesans cut off their hair, and renounced a life of 
ignominy. It was then that he founded for these 
converted sinners the abbey of St. Anthony. The 
students wished to cooperate in its establishment, 
and remitted to him two hundred and fifty livres. 
The moral condition of the city was soon wholly reno- 
vated. Reginald rejoiced at this spectacle. His 
conduct had been such, that the intrepid apostle, in 
the name of the Church, held him up as an example 
to the clerics of the university. Reginald had long 
before said to Wisdom, " Thou art my sister;" and on 
arriving at Paris, he said to Prudence, ' ' Be my friend. " 
(Prov. vii, 4.) Here he at once adopted a sober, 
retired, and laborious mode of life. Knowing that 
1 ' chastity is a gift of God, and that we bear this 
treasure in fragile vessels," he ceased not to implore 
it by most ardent prayers; and, the better to obtain 



OF ST. GILES. 25 

his request, tenderly loved the Blessed Virgin, whom 
he frequently invoked at the Church of Notre Dame. 
There, according to the custom of pious clerics of 
those times, he took part in the daily offices. It 
was thus he lived chastely, in the bosom of a corrupt 
city, in the midst of a debauched youth, resembling 
that fountain of Arethusa, spoken of in the schools, 
which mingles its waters with those of the sea, with- 
out contracting its brackishness. Reginald passed 
from the study of philosophy and the humanities to 
that of theology and the sacred sciences. The most 
celebrated schools were those of St. -Germain-des- 
Pres, St. Genevieve, and the cloister of Notre Dame. 
It is probable that, by preference, he attached 
himself to the latter, for there we soon find him 
studying and teaching canon-law. During this 
period he is, by degrees, raised to the ecclesiastical 
state, aspiring more and more ardently to the pos- 
session of true wisdom, which is at once knowledge 
and love, fire and light. He willed not to resemble 
those mirrors which absorb much light, but are 
powerless to reflect ; hence the day on which he 
received the sacerdotal consecration, he brought to 
God and the Church a knowledge equal to his 
virtue, an elevated mind, nourished by hard study, 
and a virgin heart, replenished with piety and affec- 
tion. A grand religious movement was at that time 



26 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

achieved in the bosom of the university. We see 
wealthy students and renowned doctors bidding 
adieu to the world, and entering the cloister. Some 
among the Chartreuse and the Cistercians; others 
among the Mathurins or the Val-des-Ecoliers. 
Reginald, doubtless, counted, among these, many 
masters and friends, dear to his heart, but did not 
follow their example. His hour had not yet come, 
nor was it to these cloisters he was to be called. 
After having spent several years in the study of 
philosophy and theology, he particularly applied 
himself to the study of canon-law, which soon be- 
came his favorite science, — the science which was 
to give lustre to his name, to open to him the path 
to ecclesiastical dignities, and prepare the way 
for his vocation. In 1 206, when he was about the 
age of thirty, the faculty of canon-laws received 
him into the ranks of its doctors, and from that 
time counted him among its most distinguished 
professors. 

At first, the study of canon-law was not sepa- 
rated from that of theology. The canons of the 
councils, and the supreme decisions of the popes, 
were only a proof and confirmation of the thesis, 
and they are still so employed by authors who treat 
of dogmas and morals. It was only little by little, 
as the Church extended her authority, and with it 



OF ST. GILES. 27 

the laws which were to defend her, that this branch 
of ecclesiastical science attained greater importance, 
and aimed at being distinguished as a special doc- 
trine. Toward the middle of the twelfth century, 
the separation appeared complete. The professors 
of law taught by the side of the theologians, in the 
cloisters of Notre Dame. The former expounded 
the Gratian decrees, and commented upon them, 
as the latter expounded and commented upon the 
sentences of Peter the Lombard. They taught, 
according to custom, the civil, conjointly with the 
canon-law ; for the ignorance of the times and the 
confidence of the people had placed judicature in 
the hands of the clergy. The publication of the 
code of Justinian, of which a manuscript existed 
at Pisa before the twelfth century, had suddenly 
reanimated the study of Roman law. The clergy 
applied themselves to it with the greatest ardor. 
Theology was neglected ; canons quitted their 
churches, and monks their convents, to become 
students of law in the universities. Four councils 
in vain censured this study, which was the more 
attractive, as it led to honors and fortune. The 
popes were obliged to interfere, and, in 12 19, Hono- 
rius III expressly forbade this study to religious and 
clerics, in order to place a barrier between them 
and the causes that too often brought about the 



28 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

neglect of sacred science, and the highest duties of 
their vocation. The law school at Bologna was 
without a rival. The University of Paris, however. 
soon attracted learned professors ; among the most 
celebrated we may cite : Gerard la Pucelle, of English 
origin, who taught from the year 1160 to 11 77, and 
became Bishop of Paris ; Anselm of Paris, afterwards 
Bishop of Meaux ; Matthew of Angers, and Stephen 
of Paris, who were, later on, the one a cardinal, the 
other Archdeacon of Autun. 

Reginald was not unworthy of these illustrious 
predecessors. The decretals of Gratian were only 
a vast compilation of arid text ; he made them, by 
aid of the scholastic method, eminent for clearness, 
order, and unity. During five consecutive years a 
crowd of disciples surrounded his chair, eagerly 
gathering the words that fell from his lips. He was 
teaching with an ever-increasing success, when the 
canons of St. Aignan of Orleans cast their eyes 
upon him, as one suitable to be at their head. 
They belonged to a city where the schools of canon- 
law were very nourishing — to a collegiate church, 
which had cultivated the sacred sciences during 
five centuries; and moreover, on account of circum- 
stances, which shall presently be related, they were 
then in a delicate and difficult situation. The 
name of the youthful and eminent professor had 



OF ST. GILES. 29 

reached them,* and, by common consent, they 
elected him dean. Reginald submissively bowed 
to this unexpected choice, and feeling himself called, 
less to honor than to anxieties and cares, quitted 
Paris for the post to which Providence had assigned 
him. 



* It is probable that they knew him by his visiting the chapel in honor 
of St. Aignan, which one of their deans, Stephen de Garland, on becom- 
ing Archdeacon of Paris, had built near Notre Dame. See Document I, 
at the end of this work. 



$Q LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 



CHAPTER III. 

Reginald Dean of the Collegiate of St. Aignan ; his prudence 
wisdom, and goodness. — He gives himself to preaching, 
and desires to embrace voluntary poverty and an apostolic 
life. — State of the Church in the thirteenth century. — Mis- 
sion of the Friars Preachers and Friars Minors. 

(1211-1218.) 
The monastery of St Aignan was built at the 
commencement of the seventh century, on the tomb 
of the bishop of that name, who had preserved the 
city of Orleans from the triumphant heresy of Arius, 
and from the formidable invasion of Attila. Under 
Pepin and Charlemagne, the monks, greatly re- 
laxed from their primitive discipline, were replaced 
by a collegiate of canons. The latter lived for a long 
time in common, under the rule of St. Augustine, and 
directed an influential school. Hugh Capet, having 
become king, restored to their church all the property 
which, according to the abusive custom introduced 
by Charles Martel, had been seized by the dukes of 
France and the counts of Orleans. His successor, the 
pious and pacific Robert, rebuilt the antique sanc- 
tuary, and augmented its possessions and privileges. 
After his example, nearly all the kings of the second 
family honored themselves by bearing the title of 



OF ST. GILES. 31 

Abbots of St. Aignan, on account of the seigniory 
of Orleans, their particular domain. In return, the 
deans were obliged to render them fidelity and hom- 
age, as to their lord. They received their investiture 
in the presence of the king's officers, by the bestowal 
of a sword, a girdle, a purse, two golden spurs, and 
a sparrow-hawk. To this office was attached more 
than one honor and dignity. The great immunities 
which St. Aignan enjoyed ; the long-existing glory 
of its church ; the administration of important 
domains ; the nomination to numberless benefices ; 
absolute exemption from the authority of the bishop 
and chapter; the too frequent conflicts that arose 
from its vast riches and privileges, — all made it a dif- 
ficult post to fill. Great wisdom was necessary in 
the administration of affairs. This wisdom was the 
more necessary to the new dean, as Manasses de 
Seignelay, Bishop of Orleans, was then engaged in a 
grave conflict with the King of France. The king 
had, in 1209, assembled his bishops and barons at 
Mantes, and ordered them to go to Brittany, and lay 
siege to a castle whicli served as a refuge to the Eng- 
lish, under the command of the Count of St. Paul. 
William de Seignelay, Bishop of Auxerre, and his 
brother Manasses, refused, and immediately recalled 
their troops, holding that they were bound to make 
war only when the king repaired thither in person. 



32 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

Philip Augustus, indignant at this, confiscated all 
their patrimonies. The bishops, in retaliation, issued 
an interdict against the lands belonging to the king, 
in their dioceses. Meanwhile the Chapter of Orleans 
refused to fulminate the interdict against the city, and, 
in return, received the thanks and congratulations of 
the king. The Dean of St. Aignan, William, the for- 
mer chaplain of Philip Augustus, vigorously sustain- 
ed his right of exemption. His death, happening in 
the midst of these misunderstandings, cast the canons 
of the collegiate in a twofold embarrassment For 
several years discord had existed between them and 
their dean, which was now aggravated by their con- 
tests with the bishop. They then concluded to place 
at their head a man capable of making their rights 
respected, and of reestablishing peace in the bosom 
of their collegiate. Their choice, as we have seen, 
fell on Reginald ; and Philip Augustus, informed of 
his merits, willingly gave the royal approbation.* 

Reginald corresponded with the trust reposed in 
him by the king, as also with the expectations of 
the canons. Scarcely was he installed when he 
seconded, with all his efforts, the intervention of the 
Sovereign Pontiff, invoked by both parties. Peace 
was restored the following year. The King of France 
stipulated that the canons of St. Aignan should not 

* Hubert, loc cit., p. 102. 



OF ST. GILES, 33 

be disturbed by the bishop for having opposed the 
interdict : a useless stipulation, for Reginald and 
Manasses had already formed a firm friendship. 

All the known acts of his administration are so 
many monuments of wisdom and prudence. One 
of the first was an act of beneficence. At a time 
when the Church actively promoted the emancipation 
of serfs, he also granted freedom to persons under 
his jurisdiction. We will cite one act which has 
been preserved to our time, and which was granted 
to a woman named Emeline, and to all her posterity : 

"Reginald, Dean of St. Aignan of Orleans, and 
the entire chapter of the same church, to all those 
who shall read these present letters, salvation in the 
Lord. 

" Be it known to all, that, through love of God 
and our neighbor, we forever emancipate Emeline, 
daughter of Godfrey Malehue, from the yoke of 
servitude which has bound her and her posterity to 
our Church, in such a manner that, in the neighbor- 
hood of our cloister, released from the feudal law, 
neither she nor her heirs shall ever reclaim anything, 
unless they wish to submit to their former servitude. 
In faith of, and to assure the permanence and 
stability of which, we have made this writing, and 
hereunto attached our seal. 

H Given at our chapter, in the month of January, 



34 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

the year of the incarnation, MCCXII, in a council 
oft he principal personages united in our church : 
Robert, chanter ; John, subdean ; Gregory, cope- 
bearer ; Berter, sub-chanter. Written by the hand 
of John, our subdean."* Reginald wisely knew 
how to agree with his chapter, and to settle disputed 
points. He prescribed decrees, which fixed the 
rights of each and every one: their remarkable tenor 
revealed not less the rectitude of the man, than 
the science of the canonist, f The piety, zeal, and 
wisdom, he displayed in the discharge of his duties, 
soon won him general esteem and sympathy. His 
chapter, of which he was the interpreter as well as 
the chief, held no other opinions than his. He ex- 
plained the movements of the chapter in words ; and 
the members, knowing that they were conducted 
by a saint, felt that it would be resisting the spirit 
of God to resist his wishes. This perfect understand- 
ing with his chapter did not prevent an equally 
perfect one with his bishop. Their separate inter- 
ests never divided their minds ; and so closely were 
they united, that one would have thought the bishop 
to be dean, or the dean bishop. 

Toward the commencement of the year 12 13, 
when Manasses, with his brother William, was about 
to lead, troops to the Count de Montfort, in order 

* See Document II. * See Documents III, IV and V. 



OF ST. GILES. 35 

to fight against the Albigenses, he desired to confirm 
his friendship for Reginald, and his reconciliation 
with the Collegiate of St. Aignan. This he did by 
making a generous gift to its church for the ransom 
of his own soul, and the souls of his parents. 

Meanwhile Reginald, without relaxation, labored 
for his own sanctification, as well as that of the flock 
confided to his care. The Collegiate of St. Aignan 
was charged with the care of souls, and preaching 
constituted one of the principal duties of the dean. 
The Council of Lateran reminded bishops of this 
obligation in a solemn decree, which terminated as 
follows: "We ordain that, in all the cathedral 
churches and collegiates, able men be associated 
with the bishops, as coadjutors and cooperators. " 
(Session iii, chap. 10. ) 

The new dean of St. Aignan had not waited for 
the promulgation of this decree. He possessed too 
high a sense of duty not to fulfil it without delay. 
From his first instalment he had largely distributed 
to his people the bread of God's word, but this 
pastoral ministry no longer satisfied the ardor of his 
zeal. He thought of renouncing his charge, in 
order to embrace voluntary poverty, and consecrate 
himself entirely to the preaching of the Gospel. 
The fire of charity inflamed his soul, and, like Jesus 
Christ, who had come on earth to enkindle it, he 






$6 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

ardently desired to communicate it to others. As 
yet he knew not how he could cam' out his design. 
Arrived at the full possession of his powers, and 
already at the apex of life, he resembled a traveller 
who, advancing into an unknown country, ascends 
a height to examine the distant horizon, and dis- 
cover the point toward which he must direct his 
course. A secret and sorrowful work was being 
accomplished in him. He sought to solve the 
problem of his destiny. Agitated and troubled, he 
would often say to God, ' ' Lord, make me know 
the way I should follow ; n and, in order to second 
the action of grace, he studied himself, as also the 
condition of the Church and society. Until then his 
life had been passed in the cloister, in study, teach- 
ing and prayer. He had entered the ways of the 
apostolate by his preaching in the collegiate, and had 
thus known that intercommunion of souls, which 
is the great felicity of the priest worthy of his mission; 
and which removes from him even* regret for having 
quitted for Jesus Christ the goods, friendships, and 
hopes of this world. * From that day the aposto- 
late had for him irresistible attractions. 

History pointed to him the cenobitical institute, 
come from the Thebais, to combat the inveterate 
paganism of the Old World, this institute occupying, 

* " Memoir of Pere Lacordaire," by M. de Montalembert. 



OF ST. GILES. 37 

from the middle of the fifth century, all the provinces 
of the Roman Empire, and placed on every fron- 
tier, in order to reach and gain barbarians. All these 
monasteries, transformed into Benedictine cloisters, 
and supported and eulogized by the Papacy, ap- 
peared to Reginald as having been raised up by God 
to protect those three elements of civilization : labor, 
science and virtue, from the storm raging in Europe 
during the barbarian invasion. He still saw around 
him, almost within the range of vision, the magnifi- 
cent remains of these monasteries. Near Orleans, 
in the valley of Micy, he saw the monastery where 
St. Maximin, brought by Clovis himself, had taught, 
thirty years before the foundation of Monte Cassino. 
His was the voluntary and fruitful labor of a free man, 
in favor of a people who knew little except the indo- 
lence of masters, or the constrained and sterile labor 
of slaves. A little farther on, at the opposite side 
of the city, he could see the Monastery of Fleury, 
called by excellence, — since it received from Italy the 
remains of the patriarch of the Western monks, — the 
Monastery of St. Benedict. During centuries of 
darkness and storm, the sacred fire of science was 
preserved in its cloister, under the shadow of that 
gigantic basilica whose solemn mass appeared in the 
distance above the waves of the Loire, like the tomb 
of a departed people. In fine, at Marmoutiers, near 

2 



38 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

Tours, was seen the famous abbey founded by St 
Martin, as a sanctuary of prayer and penance. But 
these were monastic orders essentially devoted to 
the personal sanctiflcation of their members, and did 
not take an active part in the public services of the 
Church. Without doubt they were always, in spite 
of their decline, incontestably useful. Reginald did 
not regard them as stars, condemned to become ex- 
tinct, because they were not united in nature's whole. ' 
It seemed to him, and reasonably too, that they 
ought no longer to be the only ones in the Christian 
Church. If science did not reveal to him that new 
stars were constantly appearing in the vault of 
heaven, his heart and faith sufficiently informed him 
that, as Jesus Christ had created new heavens and a 
new world, he should now, according to the needs 
of the times, raise up other stars and whole con- 
stellations, destined, as he read in the words of the 
Scripture, to illumine at the same time the obscured 
and enlarged firmament of the Church. Already 
great progress had been made. St. Bruno had 
caused solitude and contemplation to flourish in the 
desert of the Grand Chartreuse ; the venerable Peter 
ofClunyreinvigorated the old trunk of St. Benedict, 
which St. Bernard had made fruitful by a vigorous 
offshoot. St. Norbert had reformed the institution 
of the regular canons, by the splendor of public 



OF ST. GILES. 39 

worship, and an austere mixture of the practices of 
Cluny and Citeaux ; in fine, divers orders of chivalry 
were instituted against Mahometanism, for the de- 
fence of the Holy Sepulchre ; and that of the Trini- 
tarians, for the redemption of captives. But these 
did not yet suffice. Other necessities and other 
times claimed new institutions, and other captives 
sighed for their deliverance. Barbarity of a new 
kind menaced Christendom. The monastic orders 
were no longer sufficient to arrest its progress, and 
God was about to raise up the apostolic. The Cru- 
sades had, it is true, weakened the material power of 
Mahometanism. Vanquished in Spain, driven from 
Italy, the Crescent saw itself strongly attacked in the 
centre of its own empire. But its intellectual and 
moral influence, seconded by the house of Hohen- 
stauffen, was not less menacing and formidable. 
Its false doctors penetrated farther than its arms ; 
and while the latter were valiantly repulsed on all 
sides, the former invaded the universities, which 
enthusiastically gathered their works and commen- 
taries on Aristotle. Science, misled for more than 
half a century by the abuse of Dialectics, believed it 
had found herein strong arms against the faith. 
But these arms fell back upon science itself, which, 
already the victim of its own revolt, and confounded 
in its pride, was teaching, as we have seen, the 



40 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

grossest and most monstrous errors. Morals were 
not less shaken than faith'. At this moment the 
papal sun v/as passing the meridian of its political 
and temporal power, which had been one of the 
most active causes of European progress. The 
churches and monasteries were possessed of immense 
territorial riches, which riches ceased not to be the 
gift of a generous people, the magnificence of kings, 
the patrimony of the poor, and the ransom of souls, 
as well as the fruits of long and painful labor. But 
their possessors, in general, no longer rendered them- 
selves honorable by the practice of their duties, 
still less by the personal culture of their domains. 
They placed the serf or the peasant at their ploughs, 
and their idleness, like their opulence, engendered 
grave disorders and scandalous abuses. The goods 
of the Church too often became the reward of 
simony and ambition, or the prey of indolence and 
luxury. Besides, the Crusaders had witnessed the 
manners of the Mussulman in Asia. Fascinated 
by this sensual religion, they imbibed a taste for it, 
and introduced its practices into Europe. Woman 
was no longer regarded with that respect, honor, and 
fidelity, which chivalry, inspired by Christianity, had 
vowed to her. 

On the other hand, heresy, favored by general 
ignorance and corruption, had made rapid strides. 



OF ST. GILES. 41 

First, the heresy of the Albigenses united itself to the 
Manichean, whose principal dogmas it professed. 
The disciples of Manos, condemned and subdued in 
the East, had secretly taken refuge in Thrace and Bul- 
garia, whence they sent out missionaries as zealous as 
they were subtle. Some Crusaders, meeting them on 
the way to Constantinople, carried their errors into 
their own countries. These, soon becoming numer- 
ous and powerful in Germany, Italy, and the south of 
France, feared not the truth, nor hesitated to employ 
force, in order to secure the triumph of their doctrine. 
Then followed the heresy of the Waldenses. Heed- 
less of the speculative errors of the Manicheans, 
ignorant and fanatic, like their master, Peter Valdo, 
a rich merchant of Lyons, these partisans proclaim ed 
themselves reformers of the Church. They boldly 
preached that the Church had deviated from the 
right faith, and must be brought back to the 
simplicity of the Gospel. The Albigenses and Wal- 
denses soon spread into the same countries, and, 
after having mingled their errors, united their efforts 
against their common enemy, Innocent III, then 
Pontiff of the Church, who knew the grave danger 
that threatened her, and valiantly strove to avert it, 
by convoking the Council of Lateran for the extir- 
pation of heresy, and the reformation of discipline. 
The evil was imminent, but the remedy seemed 






42 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

unsuccessful. One night, a short time before his 
death, this great pope saw, in a dream, the two towers 
of St. John Lateran shake to their bases : a sad and 
expressive symbol of the decadence of faith and 
morals among Christians. To arrest this decadence, 
and bring back Christian progress, a new effusion of 
that spirit which, at the time of the apostles, had re- 
newed the face of the earth, was necessary. Again were 
preaching and example, knowledge and virtue, the 
apostolate and voluntary poverty, needed, not only 
in some isolated members, but in a state of public 
and permanent institution. It was first necessary to 
institute a corps of doctors and preachers, destined to 
expound the Gospel in a manner at once simple 
and popular, learned and doctrinal, and suited to 
the intellectual and moral wants of the epoch ; thus 
causing the light of truth, like a two-edged sword, 
to penetrate deep into the minds and hearts of the 
people. The Council of Lateran had published an 
important decree touching pastoral preaching, which 
was much neglected, and no longer corresponded to 
the needs of modern times. After having preached 
the Crusade, the priest, Foulques, and some compan- 
ions, that they might spread religious instruction, 
and reform manners, journeyed through the country. 
Like James, of Vitry, their missions were, at the 
time, attended with great success, but did not pro- 



OF ST. GILES, 43 

duce lasting fruits. Wicked preachers and false 
prophets continued to multiply and make rapid 
progress. Foulques' undertaking was a fortunate 
attempt, which ought to have been executed on a 
grander scale. Now the clergy, even with learning, 
were not sufficient for the pastoral preaching, 
essentially local and conservative ; hence, the enter- 
prise ought to have been attended by a subduing 
and universal preaching, capable of bringing back 
the souls that had wandered from the faith, and of 
extending the frontiers of the Church, by evangeliz- 
ing the nations plunged into darkness. The two 
great families of St. Augustine and St. Benedict, 
the monks and the canons, could not leave their 
cloisters and their colleges, to become apostles and 
missionaries, except by abandoning their vocation, 
and that, too, in favor of exceptional circumstances. 
An institution, directly devoted to the practice of 
voluntary poverty, was also necessary. The luxury 
of the clergy, the wealth of the monks, were the 
favorite arguments of the Waldenses, who found 
their own apparent simplicity the principal means 
of success among the people. The moment was 
fast approaching when this weapon in their hands 
was to be weakened by the coming forth of an ex- 
ample of perfect detachment from the goods of the 
world. Such were the thoughts and sentiments of 



44 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

Reginald ; and when he cast his eyes about him on 
the religious Orders, he found none in perfect har- 
mony with the needs of Christianity, and his own 
aspirations. To avoid the confusion which a too 
great diversity might introduce in the Church of 
God, the Council of Lateran had forbidden the 
foundation of new Orders (chap. xiii). Neverthe- 
less, Reginald did not despair. He thought that, 
as nature can vary its products to suit the seasons 
and climates, in order to distribute to man according 
to his needs, so also could the Church give birth, in 
its own day and hour, to the Orders and institutions 
which the condition of the times, and the needs of 
Christians, seemed to demand. The holy Council 
had made one wise reserve in its decree, by declaring, 
" Whoever shall wish to embrace the religious life 
must enter an Order already established ; whoever 
shall wish to found a new Order, must make choice 
of an approved rule. " It then remained possible to 
build in the common city, under the protection of 
these old ramparts, the particular edifice of the two 
Orders demanded by the present condition of 
religion. By combining, in wise proportions, the 
ancient and the modern genius of the East and of 
the West, contemplation and action, the monastic 
element and the apostolic, they could, in this way, 
make of their members workmen and soldiers, who 






OF ST. GILES. 45 

should restore Christianity, by laboring on one hand, 
and combatting on the other, like unto those who 
rebuilt the temple, after the captivity of Babylon. 
Reginald redoubled his confidence and fervor in 
prayer. He opened his heart to God, and addressed 
himself to the Blessed Virgin, whom he supplicated 
to intercede with her divine Son, to the end that 
he would take pity on his Church. He knew 
not that his desires and prayers were already granted. 
" The vengeance of Christ," says Dante, the Christian 
poet, by excellence, — ( ' that vengeance which it cost 
Him so much to rearm, was following His standard, 
attended by weak, timid, and scanty numbers, when 
the King who reigns for ever, wishing to deliver it 
from peril, by an effect of his grace, and not in 
view of its merits, sent to the assistance of his spouse 
two champions, whose example and words rallied 
its wavering followers. The one was a seraph in 
charity ; the other, by his wisdom, was a reflection, 
on earth, of the light of the cherubim. To speak 
of one or the other is to speak of both, for their 
missions tended to one and the same end."* St. 
Dominic and St. Francis were these two champions, 
raised by Jesus Christ, at the prayer of Mary, as two 
men of justice, to sustain and renew his Church. 
"Dominic and Francis," says St. Catherine, "were 

* Dante, Cantos xi, xiii. 



46 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

truly the two columns of the Church. Francis, by 
his poverty, which was his portion ; and Dominic, by 
his learning." Instituted, at the beginning of the 
thirteenth century, by common predestination, the 
Friars Preachers and the Friars Minors sprung up 
together as twin brothers, with one thought and one 
affection. 

Both were cradled jn a sanctuary, and consecrated 
to the Queen of heaven, their mother ; one at Notre 
Dame of Prouille, in Languedoc, the other at St. 
Mary's, at the foot of the Apennines. To speak here 
only of the Friars Preachers : — St. Dominic, faithful 
heir to the virtues and designs of Diego, his master 
and friend, had borne, almost alone, after Diego's 
departure, the burden of the apostolate. In 1 2 1 5 he 
went to Rome, with Foulques, Bishop of Toulouse, to 
obtain of Innocent III the establishment of an Order 
which should be, in name and deed, consecrated to 
preaching, and obtained from the Sovereign Pontiff 
encouragement and promises. Innocent's successor, 
Honorius III, solemnly approved and confirmed the 
Order of Preachers, as soon as Dominic made choice 
of the rule of St. Augustine, and the principal mo- 
nastic observances adopted by St. Norbert. The fol- 
lowing year, 12 17, the saintly patriarch summoned 
all the brethren to the convent of Prouille, and 
thence dismissed them into different cities, "for/' 



OF ST. GILES. 47 

said he, "the seed becomes corrupt when it is 
hoarded up, but fructifies when sown/' Seven of 
them, sent to Paris, had, without doubt, in passing 
through Orleans, gone to kneel at the Church of 
St Aignan, at the tomb of the great bishop. The 
accomplishment of all these things was unknown to 
Reginald, but God, who always favors the designs 
he himself inspires, revealed them to him. Our 
Lord, by an interior grace, called him into Italy, in 
order to make him the ornament of an Order just 
instituted. The saint followed the inspiration, with- 
out knowing it. The grace that filled his soul 
attracted him to Rome, there to enter the company 
of St. Dominic, and assist this glorious patriarch in 
a work which was to prove so useful to the Church. 
It was at Rome that God awaited him ; at Rome, 
the centre of unity and faith, the bulwark of the 
Papacy, the custodian of renowned works, the watch- 
tower of great vocations. We shall see how our 
Blessed Reginald was called thither, no longer to be 
only a canon, but an apostle and a Friar Preacher ; 
to cease to be dean of St. Aignan, in becoming 
vicar to St. Dominic, and thus to merit the same 
eulogy which the Church was to award his master 
and father: "Virum canonicum auget in apostoli- 
cum." 






48 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Pilgrimage of Reginald and the Bishop of Orleans to 
Rome. — Meeting of Reginald and Dominic. — His illness, 
vision, and miraculous cure. — Was this vision the prin- 
ciple and cause of the change of the habit of the Friars 
Preachers ? 

(1218, June-August.) 

Reginald had discharged the functions of dean of 
St. Aignan for seven years, when Bishop Manasses, 
his friend, desiring to visit Rome and Jerusalem, 
invited him to be the companion of his pilgrimage. 
He accepted the invitation the more willingly as he 
had long before conceived the same design, and only 
wanted a favorable moment to accomplish it. The 
two friends left Orleans toward the end of June, 
1 218. What route did they take? Did Reginald 
go to St. Giles to visit his family, his early friends and 
masters, and to pray in the crypt of the old abbey ? 
(In this abbey now reposed, by the side of the holy 
founder, the remains of the legate, Peter of Castelnau, 
lately martyred, on the banks of the Rhone, by an 
assassin of Raymond of Toulouse. ) History does 
not tell us ; we are only informed that they arrived 
at Rome a short time after setting out. We shall 
not attempt to describe the emotion that filled the 
soul of Reginald when he entered the Eternal City. 



OF ST. GILES. 49 

The grandeur of Ancient Rome disappeared before 
the majesty of Pontifical Rome. He hastened to 
kneel at the tomb of the holy apostles, to visit the 
catacombs and sanctuaries, consecrated by Christian 
piety and the blood of martyrs. The ardor of his 
faith and charity was redoubled, and he felt him- 
self drawn toward the apostolate, with a force till 
then to him unknown. In a conversation with a 
cardinal, who enjoyed at Rome a high reputation 
for wisdom and virtue, Reginald confidentially opened 
his heart, and declared his intention of embracing 
a state of voluntary poverty, and of preaching Jesus 
Christ from city to city. "Behold even now," said 
the cardinal, an Order has been instituted which 
has for its end the union of poverty with the office 
of preaching. The master of this new Order is at 
this moment in the city, proclaiming the word of 
God." Having heard this, Reginald hastened to 
seek the Blessed Dominic. Toward the end of the 
preceding year, after the dispersion of the friars, 
Dominic returned to Rome. Here he lived in the 
convent of St. Sixtus, which Honorius had given him 
and his companions, whose number daily increased. 
His incessant preaching in the different churches, 
his teaching in the pope's palace, where he explained 
the epistles of St. Paul, his virtues and miracles, made 
him exceedingly popular. He was venerated as an 



50 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

apostle and doctor, as a miracle-worker and a 
prophet. When he had preached, the crowd pressed 
forward in his footsteps, and each one esteemed 
himself happy in bearing away, as a relic, a 
fragment of his habit To such an extent did they 
carry their devotion, that his mantle and scapular 
scarcely reached his knees. Reginald hastened to 
reveal the secret of his soul. He was captivated by 
the grace of Dominic's discourse, and rejoiced to 
learn that their lives bore such a resemblance. Like 
himself, Dominic had lived in the shadow of the 
cloister and sanctuary ; like himself, after having 
passed his youth in the universities, he had been 
placed at the head of a chapter of canons. In the 
peaceful position of canon, Reginald soon became 
possessed of the soul of a Friar Preacher. From the 
midst of his divine offices, and the bosom of his 
pastoral ministry; in the collegiate, under the hidden 
but powerful influence of the spirit of prayer, an 
earnest desire for the salvation of souls, and, as a 
consequence, the love of preaching, developed in his 
heart But, while the apostolic life, with its hands 
filled with trophies, incited his ambition, the con- 
sideration of the perils that surrounded it retained 
him at a distance. He dreamed of a preaching 
which should join to the sap and nerve of doctrine, 
and the safe-guard of obedience, the cortege of pov- 



OF ST. GILES. 51 

erty, mortification, and every folly of the cross. But 
nowhere had his ideal been shown him, when God, 
who was pleased to try and purify his soul by the 
purging flame of interior desire, drew him, in com- 
pany with his bishop, to Rome, — Rome, where 
every great vocation tends, sooner or later, to receive 
either the thought that inspires, or the benediction 
that confirms it. Then he understood, admired, 
and adored, the wonderful designs of Providence, 
which had conducted him with sweetness and force 
to this decisive point of his career. With a heart 
dilated with gratitude and love, he said to himself : 
"At last I have found it; the heretofore invisible 
ideal of the preacher is before me. I have seen it, I 
have heard it, and this Order of Preachers, which I 
have so much desired for the regeneration of the 
Church, is established : it exists, it is approved and 
confirmed by the Sovereign Pontiff." From that 
moment Reginald resolved to enter this Order with- 
out delay. But adversity, the test of all saintly pro- 
jects, failed not to try his in like manner. He was 
stricken with a violent fever, which made such a rapid 
progress, that the physicians, perceiving him at 
death's door, despaired of his recovery. Dominic, 
the man of God, grieving at the thought of losing, 
prematurely, a child of so many hopes, turned 
himself to fervent prayer. 



52 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

His afflicted heart sent forth importunate sighs to 
the Divine Being, and to his holy Mother, whom 
he had chosen patroness of his Order. He implored 
them (as he afterward recounted to the Friars), not 
to take from him so suddenly the joy of possessing 
a son as yet but hardly born; to prolong his life, if it 
were but for a short time, since h'e was most assured 
this child would one day be a vessel of election. 
While he was thus praying, Reginald awoke, and, 
momentarily expecting death, distinctly saw the 
Queen of heaven, accompanied by two maidens of 
ravishing beauty, St. Cecilia and St. Catherine, ad- 
vancing toward him. Mary, smiling, said to him: 
"Ask me what thou wilt, and I will give it thee." 
Astonished at so august an apparition, he deliberated 
within himself on what he should ask, when one of 
the virgins who accompanied the Mother of God, 
suggested to him that he ask nothing, but leave him- 
self entirely to the will of the Queen of mercy. 
Then the Blessed Virgin, extending her hand, 
anointed his eyes, ears, nostrils, mouth, hands, reins, 
and feet, with oil brought by St Cecilia, meanwhile 
pronouncing certain words appropriate to each unc- 
tion. We know only the words relative to the unction 
of reins and feet. While touching the reins, she said: 
" Let thy reins be girt with the girdle of chastity, and 
thy feet be shod for the preaching of peace. " Then, 



OF ST. GILES. 53 

taking from the hands of St. Catherine the habit of 
the Friars Preachers, she showed it to him, saying 
< 'Behold the habit of thy Order," and disappeared. 
Reginald immediately felt himself cured, anointed, 
as he had been, by the Mother of Him who possesses 
the secrets of every unction of salvation. While at 
prayer St. Dominic learned from God all that passed 
in regard to Reginald. The next morning, on 
Dominic's inquiring concerning his health, Reginald 
replied that nothing ailed him, and related his vision. 
Together they devoutly returned thanks to the Saviour 
who strikes and heals, who wounds and who makes 
whole. The physicians marvelled at a cure so 
sudden and unexpected, not knowing what remedy 
could have cured him who so lately seemed beyond 
recovery.- Three days after, by a favor from heaven, 
the same vision and miraculous unction was renewed, 
in presence of Dominic, and a religious of the Order 
of Hospitallers. This celestial unction cured not 
only Master Reginald's body of the fever, but also 
extinguished in him the flames of concupiscence, 
for, from that day, he never again felt their power, as 
he himself avows. Blessed Dominic often related 
this apparition to the brethren, particularly after the 
death of Reginald. 

This vision, so celebrated in our annals, suggests 
an important question, which we cannot pass over in 



54 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

silence. It is relative to the change introduced in 
the habit of the Order, of which, according to several 
historians, this vision was the principle and cause. 
Some say the Blessed Virgin, in appearing to 
Reginald, did not show him the habit of the Order, 
as then worn by St. Dominic and his disciples, but 
that which they were henceforth to wear; that is, that 
in which the surplice, or rochet, was replaced by the 
scapular. According to other historians, not less 
learned and pious, the Blessed Virgin, in presenting 
to him the habit of the Order, then new and little 
known, such as St. Dominic wore, said, " Behold the 
habit of thy Order; " thus confirming him in his 
resolution, and engaging him to be clothed without 
delay. We adopt this opinion, and will justify it. 
It is not in question to examine here the truth of 
this privileged apparition, which the first disciples of 
St. Dominic unanimously record, still less to contest 
this distinction with an Order so justly renowned for 
other glorious marks of the protection of the Blessed 
Virgin. It is only a question of discussing what the 
most learned historians have handed down to us ; 
those who, having lived with Blessed Reginald, 
could easily have learned from his own lips all the 
circumstances of so marvellous a fact. Now their 
testimony, far from giving any foundation to the 
ideas which later historians have produced, seems to 



OF ST. GILES. 



55 



prove directly the contrary. See how, after Blessed 
Jourdain, Father Stephen de Bourbon, received and 
distinguished in the Order of Friars Preachers, 
before the year 1233, explains it : •' We read," says 
he, ' * in the life of St Dominic, that Reginald, 
perceiving himself dangerously ill, and given up by 
physicians, had recourse to the Blessed Virgin, to 
whom he had a special devotion ; that then this 
Mother of mercy, accompanied by two other virgins, 
one of whom carried a kind of ointment, and the other 
the habit of the Friars Preachers, appeared to him. 
After having cured him, by anointing his members, 
she showed him this habit, advising him to receive 
it as soon as possible, ' ' for, " said she, ' ' the Order of 
Friars Preachers is lately established, and yet but 
little known."* "Do we see in these words of a 
contemporary author," says Gerard de Frachet, 
"anything that indicates a change in the habit of 
the religious of St. Dominic ? Is Blessed Reginald 
there told to intimate to the holy patriarch the 
obligation of laying aside his first habit, and sub- 
stituting the scapular for the surplice ? He is, on 
the contrary, told that the habit shown him is that 
of the Friars Preachers, — that by which he was to 
distinguish them; consequently, that which they 
already wore, and which was shown him only be- 

* Lib. de Dono Pietatis, page 11, tit. 6. cap. 16. Cod. Sorbonn.< 



56 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

cause these new religious were still but little known : 
" Habitum ordinis Prcedicatorum, qui ordo novus erat 
et incognitos. " 

In vain is it objected that the silence of this writer 
concerning the change in the habit does not detract 
from the truth of the circumstances related by later 
historians. The forgetfulness would not have been 
common to all authors of the same period; besides, 
it is worthy of remark that those who, some years 
later, in order to supply what might have been incon- 
siderately omitted by preceding biographers, wrote 
the life of their holy founder, say nothing more of 
it, although, according to the remark of Pere Echard 
(1, page 72), "they undertook to prove that their 
Order, in its institution and progress, felt the protec- 
tion of the Mother of God." What then, was the 
habit of the Order ? What was the costume worn by 
St. Dominic and his disciples ? Was the scapular a 
part of it? It was the same that St. Dominic 
received at the chapter of St Osma, and consisted of a 
white tunic, fastened at the waist by a leathern girdle ; 
over this were worn a surplice and a black cloak, 
to which was attached a cowl of the same color. 
As to the scapular, it was far from being a new, an 
unknown, or an unused article of dress. For a long 
time monks had worn it, as a safe-guard for modesty 
and as a means of cleanliness, in agricultural and 



OF ST. GILES. 57 

domestic employments. Several congregations of 
regular canons had adopted it for the same ends, 
because, following the example of the monks, they 
had bound themselves, by a law, to manual labor. 
It was thus Honorius III prescribed it to the con- 
gregation of the Valley of the Scholars, in the Bull 
of its institution. Another simple and natural reason 
gave rise to the scapular, and more and more devel- 
oped its use. We know the hat and square bonnet 
were not yet known; instead of which, everybody, 
monks and laymen, secular and regular clerics, 
ordinarily covered their head with a hood or cowl. 
It was this which gave rise to the scapular of cloth, 
which consists of a band fastened to the cowl at the 
front and back, in order to facilitate its adjustment. 
The words, cowl and scapular, were used indifferent- 
ly, to designate the one and the other. The Premon- 
stratensians, and certain chapters of cathedrals, wore 
it as their proper and ordinary habit. The Bollan- 
dists believe St. Dominic received it on entering the 
chapter of Osma. Signio thus expresses himself, 
. in his learned treatise on the Canonical Order: 
" Several ancient canons wore the scapular, as it is 
related of St. Dominic, who, having laid aside the 
surplice, retained all the other parts of his first 
habit," We have already stated, following Thierry 
d' Apolda, that, while St. Dominic preached in Rome, 



58 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

before the arrival of Reginald, the people manifested 
their devotion by cutting off pieces of his cloak and 
cowl, so that they scarcely reached his knees. Now 
this cowl scarcely reaching the knees, evidently 
signifies the scapular, which was attached to it, and 
which we designate by the same name. The scapu- 
lar, therefore, was known and worn by the monks 
and canons regular. St Dominic, like many others, 
wore it, but it was not then what it became later, 
and what it is to-day. It is, doubtless, for this reason 
the great patriarch, as well as many others of the 
first Friars Preachers, has sometimes been represented 
without this article of dress. During the latter part 
of the thirteenth century, the usage of the scapular 
became general, and was ennobled, after the celebrat- 
ed apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Blessed Simon 
Stock. It was no longer only a garment of cleanli- 
ness and modesty, but became, henceforth, a garment 
of piety and honor. We regard it as the holy livery 
of the servants and children of Mary; and several 
Orders, ours in particular, adopted it as the essential 
and distinctive part of the habit : Protestativum 
sua professionis. We believe, then, the vision of 
Blessed Reginald did not cause any change in the 
habit of the Order. In effect, Galvaneus Flamma, 
speaking of the sojourn of St. Dominic at Milan, 
in 12 1 7-1 2 19, both before and after the vision 






OF ST. GILES. 59 

of Blessed Reginald, uses the same expressions, and, 
say the canons of St. Nazarus, received him honor- 
ably, and welcomed him as one of their brethren, 
because they themselves wore the habit of regular 
canons. We also believe that the scapular, worn 
from the beginning, was not substituted for the sur- 
plice, but that the latter was simply abandoned a 
little later, in the spirit of humility and poverty, to 
conform to the example of St. Dominic, and, per- 
haps, to the ordinations of the first general chapter, 
held at Bologna in 1220. Listen to the declarations 
of two eye-witnesses, given under oath, in the verbal 
process made for the canonization of the holy patri- 
arch, twelve years after his death. The seventh 
witness, Brother Stephen, Provincial of Lombardy, 
declared as follows : " I knew the Blessed Dominic 
more than fifteen years ago, and I often saw him 
wearing a very poor garment, and a short scapular, 
which he would not cover with his cloak, even in 
the presence of great personages." A declaration, 
remarks Father Frederic de Poggio, which quite 
loses its value, if it is true that the Blessed Virgin 
gave the scapular to the whole Order, in the person 
of Reginald. The deposition of the fifth witness is 
much more explicit. Brother John of Spain affirms: 
"On the approaching feast of St. Augustine it will 
be eighteen years since I received the habit from the 



6o 



LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 



hands of Dominic, and made my profession the same 
day in the Church of St. Romain, at Toulouse. " He 
then added : "At the time when the Friars Preach-* 
ers, having possessions, travelled with money, and 
wore surplices, Brother Dominic applied himself to 
make them practise a more rigorous poverty : in this 
he succeeded." * An evident proof that, if the Order 
laid aside the surplice, it was in the spirit of poverty, 
and not because of Reginald's vision. The use of 
the surplice, rendered expensive by long and frequent 
journeys of the friars, was soon reserved, as among 
the Premonstratensians, for the office of choir, and, 
later, exclusively for the ministry of the altar. At 
the time of Blessed Humbert, the scapular was or- 
dinarily laid aside, to put on the surplice. 

Many will, perhaps, reproach us for having, in sus- 
taining this opinion, caused the celestial perfume, 
which seemed to exhale from our habit, to vanish. To 
these we would simply reply : If legend has its 
charms, history has its rights, which we desire to re- 
spect, in order to remain faithful to the beautiful and 
noble motto of our Fathers, Veritas (truth). In 
concluding this chapter, we would say, with Echard 
(i, page 75) : "Could we wear a more honorable 
habit than that St. Dominic wore for more than ten 
years, while combating the heretics — than that he 

* Mamachi's Appendix, p. 123, Nos. 1, 4, and p. 114, Nos. 1, 2. 



OF ST. GILES. 6 1 

consecrated by so many apostolic labors — than that 
heaven distinguished by so many visions ? " It was 
in this habit Innocent III saw him support, on his 
shoulders, the Church of St. John of Lateran, and 
which made the great pontiff foresee that his children 
would, one day, in that same livery, support the Uni- 
versal Church. It was in this habit, while he 
sojourned at Rome, in the year 1216, to obtain the 
confirmation of his Order, that the Blessed Virgin 
presented him, with St. Francis, to her divine Son, 
in order to appease his vengeance, irritated against 
the world, assuring him these two would labor with 
zeal for the salvation of souls. If the habit had been 
displeasing to the Queen of heaven, she would 
then have commanded the holy patriarch to change 
it. In fine, it was in this same habit that, while at 
prayer, after the confirmation of his Order, St. Peter 
and St. Paul appeared to him, the one giving him a 
book, the other a staff, saying: "Go and preach, 
for thou art chosen by God for that ministry." Im- 
mediately after this vision, he saw his children, 
clothed like himself, going, two and two, to evangel- 
ize the whole world. He regarded this vision as 
an admonition and celestial prediction ; and scarcely 
had he returned to Toulouse when he dispersed his 
companions, in spite of their fewness, into different 
countries of Europe. Now, if the habit was changed, 



62 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

this prediction fails. By a supreme favor, the Blessed 
Virgin wished to show how dear this habit was to 
her ; and when Reginald, who tenderly loved her> 
asked her to make her will known to him, she 
deigned to bring the habit from heaven, and urged 
him to wear it, by entering the Order of Preachers. 
Such are the true glories, if there are any at all, of the 
Dominican habit ; and those who pretend that it 
was changed at a later period, do not embellish, but 
divest it of its charm ♦ 



OF ST. GILES. 63 



CHAPTER V. 

The clothing and profession of Reginald in the Convent of 
St. Sixtus. — His pilgrimage to Jerusalem. — Returning to 
Rome, he is sent, as vicar of St. Dominic, to Bologna. — 
The wonderful success of his preaching. — Origin and pro- 
gress of the Convent of St. Nicholas. — Legends. — St. 
Dominic at Bologna. — Blessed Diana d'Andalo. — Brother 
Reginald is sent to Paris. 

(August, 1218-October, 12 1 9.) 

Reginald, miraculously cured by the Blessed Vir- 
gin, and approved and encouraged in his design 
by his friend, Bishop Manasses, received, without 
delay, the habit of the Friars Preachers, and, at the 
same time, made his profession to St. Dominic, in 
the convent of St. Sixtus. Blessed Dominic per- 
mitted him to finish his pilgrimage, in company with 
Manasses ; hence, a few days after, they embarked 
for Jerusalem. 

Pilgrimages to the Holy Land date from the 
earliest days of Christianity, never having been en- 
tirely interrupted. When Constantine and his 
pious mother had purified these places, consecrated, 
as they were, by the life, labors, and death of our 
divine Lord, from the profanations of paganism, 
Christians hastened there in crowds. St. Jerome 



64 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

wrote to Marcella, in 380, that "Christians came 
from every part of the universe, and the praises of 
Jesus Christ were chanted at his tomb, in every 
tongue." The Crusades reanimated this enthusi- 
asm, and, in the thirteenth century, every Christian 
deemed himself happy to be able to visit, at least 
once in his life, the places hallowed by the prin- 
cipal mysteries of faith. Brother Reginald and 
Manasses, in the train of so many pilgrims, visited 
all these places. They shed tears where Christ 
had shed his precious blood ; they practised virtues 
where Christ had operated his wonderful miracles ; 
they relieved the poor, where Christ had healed the 
sick ; and, recalling to memory all Jesus had done 
for his Father's glory and man's salvation, they, in 
fancy, seemed to witness the mysteries on which they 
meditated, and, living as they were, with barbarians, 
imagined they conversed with the unlettered apostles. 
In following, step by step, Gospel in hand, the 
life of our Lord, Reginald did not forget that he 
was the first of his brethren in the Holy Land, the 
first to wear the habit of the Order, in those sacred 
places. Thoughts of his brethren were ever in his 
mind, and at each station, mindful of the preachers 
of all times and countries, he prayed for them, as 
for himself, imploring God to render them true 
disciples of the cross, and true preachers of men; to 



OF ST. GILES. 65 

give them grace to immolate themselves, without 
reserve, for the salvation of souls, and often to crown 
their apostolate with the palm of martyrdom. 

Returning to Rome, the two friends were obliged 
to separate — the bishop to return to his diocese, and 
the late dean of St. Aignan to go wherever obedience 
should command. Dominic found it necessary to 
visit the convents of Bologna, Toulouse, and Madrid ; 
for which reason he had left Rome in the beginning 
of autumn. The religious of St. Sixtus recounted 
to Reginald the prodigies the saint had accomplished 
during his absence, and the prior transmitted to 
him the orders Dominic had left at his departure. 
Brother Reginald was appointed vicar, and had orders 
to go immediately to Bologna. His humility and 
modesty were alarmed at a charge which he believed 
he could not worthily fulfil; nevertheless, he accept- 
ed it, through obedience : and the wisdom displayed 
soon proved that St. Dominic could not have made 
a more judicious choice. Bologna, like Paris and 
Rome, like Toulouse and Madrid, had, from the 
first, attracted the attention of Dominic. Some days 
after Easter of this same year ( 1 2 18), he sent a colony 
of religious to this city, whose university, unrivalled 
in the instruction of jurisprudence, drew thither the 
youth of all the nations of Europe. The prior of 
this convent was Brother Richard, a man of vener- 



66 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

able age and saintly life. Received at first with 
profound indifference, the colony at length obtained 
from the Benedictines the privilege of reciting the 
Office in their church of St. Proculus. Shortly after, 
some Spanish religious, regular canons of Ronce- 
veaux, received them into their hospice, and placed 
at their disposal the church of Sancta Maria della 
Mascarella. Meanwhile, the situation of the preach- 
ers was none the less precarious; they continued to 
live in most extreme poverty. Discouragement 
was about to take possession of them, when they 
were visited by Dominic, who, as we have already 
stated, was directing his steps toward Spain. The 
blessed patriarch, wishing to reinflame their lan- 
guishing courage, and revive their cooling faith, 
renewed before them the miracle he had performed 
at St Sixtus. One day, as they were assembled in 
the refectory to take their repast, and not having 
sufficient bread, Blessed Dominic gave himself to 
prayer, and immediately two angels, in the form of 
youths, appeared, and laid on the table two loaves of 
exceeding beauty. Dominic exhorted his children 
no longer to distrust Providence, and, in bidding 
them adieu, announced the coming of a brother, 
whose learning and sanctity would not be slow 
to move the hearts of the Bolognese in their favor. * 

* See Document VII. 



OF ST. GILES. 67 

Brother Reginald arrived at Bologna on the 21st 
of the following December. Replenished with the 
spirit of his new vocation, moved by the favors 
heaven had bestowed on him, and parting with the 
remembrance of Rome and Jerusalem, he gave 
himself entirely to the work of preaching. His 
burning discourses and vehement words, like a 
flaming torch, so enkindled the hearts of the people, 
that there were none so hardened as to escape the 
fire. Bologna — the learned Bologna — was in a 
state of commotion, as at the apparition of another 
Elias. In those days Reginald gave the habit to 
several disciples, and the number of these increased 
more and more. The doctors of the university, not 
less than the students, dreaded to hear him preach, 
for fear of being allured by his eloquence. We will 
quote Gerard de Frachet, on the memorable con- 
version of one of them : 

"When Brother Reginald, of saintly memory, 
preached at Bologna, and attracted to the Order clerics 
and renowned doctors, Master Moneta, of Cremona, 
then professor of philosophy in the university, and 
renowned throughout Lombardy, seeing such num- 
berless conversions, began to fear for himself. For 
this reason he sedulously avoided Brother Reginald, 
and, by words and example, endeavored to influence 
his pupils to do likewise. However, on the feast of 



68 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

St. Stephen, they essayed to carry him with them to 
the sermon. As he could not well refuse, he said 
to them, by way of delay : ' Let us first go and hear 
Mass at St. Proculus.' They went, and remained till 
they heard, not only one, but three Masses. Moneta 
sought to extend the time, while his pupils urged 
him on, when, not being able to delay longer, he 
said : ' Now let us go to the sermon. ' On their 
arrival at the church, Reginald was still preaching. 
The crowd was so immense that Moneta could 
not enter, so he remained standing on the thresh- 
old. Scarcely had he lent an ear, when he was 
vanquished. ' I see the heavens open/ said her 
orator, — "yes, they are open at this moment to him 
who is willing to enter ; the doors are ever open to 
those who desire to pass through. Let the indiffer- 
ent pay attention, and fear lest God for ever close 
heaven to them that now close their hearts, their 
mouths, and their hands, to him. O my beloved ! 
why do you delay? The heavens are open." As 
soon as Reginald came down from the pulpit, 
Moneta, deeply moved by his words, went to him, 
laid before him the state of his conscience, and 
ended by making a vow of obedience. But, as 
many impediments prevented, by consent of Blessed 
Reginald, he remained more than a year in the 
world, wearing the secular dress. This probation 



OF ST. GILES. 69 

was not idly spent, for, as formerly he had with- 
drawn many from the preaching of Reginald, so 
henceforth he labored with his utmost energy to 
bring him hearers and disciples. Now it was one. 
again another, and at each time he himself seemed 
to receive the habit with the newly clothed*. It 
would be difficult to recount his progress in sanctity, 
when he was really clothed, and not less the admir- 
able fruits produced by his eloquence, his erudition, 
and controversies with the heretics. St. Dominic, 
having no cell of his own, was laid on the bed of 
this disciple, in his last illness." Echard says : 
"Academicians from Rome, in fact, men of letters 
generally, hastened to Bologna, to see and hear him. 
His intense love of study, and his tender devotion, 
which frequently drew tears from his eyes, caused 
him to lose his sight, in the latter days of his life. 
Like another Didymus, the learned catechist of 
Alexandria, who, in losing the sight of his eyes, lost 
nothing of the light of the soul, Moneta was 
blind a long time, but continued not less to be the 
light of his Order, by the sanctity of his life, the wis- 
dom of his counsels, and patience in trials, till the 
hour of his death, which was most precious in the 
sight of God." 

Reginald made other conquests, not less signal, 
particularly that of Brother Clair Sextius, Master of 



70 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

Arts and Canon-Law, afterward Provincial of the 
Roman Province, then casuist and chaplain to the 
pope ; also, those of Brother Paul of Venice and 
Brother Frugere, all of whom received the habit, and 
made their profession during the Lent of the follow- 
ing year. The last informs us that, having obtained 
from Master Reginald permission to visit his family, 
at his return, early in September, he found the friars 
installed in the convent of St. Nicholas, and enjoy- 
ing the presence of St. Dominic. 

The convent of Sancta Maria della Mascarella 
no longer sufficed, on account of the number of the 
brethren. Reginald at first thought of enlarging it, 
but, on account of the opposition which he met from 
the proprietors of neighboring houses, was obliged 
to renounce his project. He exposed the state of 
affairs to Cardinal Ugolino, the pope's legate, who 
was much devoted to the Order, through whose 
mediation he soon obtained from the Bishop of 
Bologna the church of St. Nicholas des Vignes. 
This church was situated near the enclosure of the 
city, and surrounded by vineyards. God had revealed 
the high predestination of this place, by many pro- 
digies. According to Brother John of Bologna, the 
laborers had often perceived there fire and light, 
which seemed to be a happy augury. Another Bo- 
lognese, Brother Clair, relates that, in his childhood, 



OF ST. GILES. 71 

his father, one day, while they were together passing 
St. Nicholas', said to him: "My son, the voices of 
angels have often been heard singing in this place, 
which is a presage of a brilliant future." ' ' I observed, '- 
said he, "perhaps they were the voices of some musi- 
cians, or of the neighboring monks of St. Proculus 
chanting the Office, but my father, an excellent 
Christian, replied : ' My son, the one is the voice of 
angels, the other is the voice of men, and we cannot 
confound them : ' words which have never been 
effaced from my memory/' 

A priest, named Rodolph, was chaplain of St. 
Nicholas. " This God-fearing man," says Gerard de 
Frachet, "declared himself ready not only to resign 
his title, but to give himself to the Order." Having 
become a Friar Preacher, he has left us the following 
account : "Before the arrival of the friars at Bologna, 
there was a poor woman, despised by men, but 
beloved by God, who often knelt and prayed with her 
face turned toward a vine, where our convent was 
afterward founded. When mocked at, and treated 
as one bereft of her senses, she would reply : "O 
unhappy ones, much more foolish than I ! If you 
knew the men who will live in this place, and what 
things shall here be accomplished, you, too, would 
prostrate yourselves in adoration before God, for 
the whole world shall be illumined by these men." 



72 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

It now only remained to purchase the adjacent 
lands belonging to Peter de Lovello, and his son, 
Andalo. This family, besides being one of the 
richest and most powerful of Bologna, enjoyed the 
right of patronage over the church of St. Nicholas. 
For a long time all propositions were rejected, but 
the Friars Preachers now relied on a protectress with- 
in that family, who would yet triumph over all re- 
sistance. This was the youthful Diana d' Andalo, 
already distinguished, less by the lustre of her birth 
and beauty, than by the elevation of her soul, the 
charm of her words, and the heroism of her virtues. 
Entering into girlhood, she acquired a taste for the 
pleasures of the world; but, when Blessed Reginald 
came to Bologna, immediately allured, as was the 
entire city, by his sanctity and eloquence, she 
thought only of consecrating herself to Jesus Christ. 
"Drawn by the Holy Spirit," says a contemporary 
writer, "she despised the pomps and vanities of the 
world, and sought more and more the friendship and 
spiritual discourses of the Friars Preachers. " Diana 
took their cause in hand, warmly pleaded with her 
family for them, and on the 14th of March, of the 
same year, Peter de Lovello, in the absence of his 
son, Andalo, then mayor of Genoa, sold to Master 
Reginald, stipulating in the name of the Friars, the 
lands adjacent to the church of St. Nicholas, and 



OF ST. GILES. 73 

ceded to him all right of patronage over said church. 
The work of building immediately began. The 
former chaplain, now Brother Rodolph, directed the 
labor, which progressed so rapidly that, within the 
short space of two months, the friars were installed 
in their convent. The young Diana, with indescrib- 
able joy, saw it rise not far from her own home, and 
her virtues expanded beneath the shadow of its 
cloister. 

Meanwhile trials, the tests of the works of God, 
were not slow in visiting the convent of St. Nicholas. 
"When the Order of Friars Preachers," says Gerard 
de Frachet, " was yet only a young plant, there arose 
among the friars of Bologna a temptation so violent, 
that all were stricken with discouragement. Many, 
persuaded that their Order, so young and feeble, 
could not long endure, began to deliberate together 
on what Order they ought to embrace. Two of the 
most worthy had already obtained from the apostolic 
legate^ Cardinal Ugolino, the privilege of entering 
the monastery of Citeaux. They presented their 
letters to Brother Reginald, who, in great sorrow, laid 
the affair before the chapter. All burst into tears at 
the increasing evil, while he, turning his eyes toward 
heaven, prayed to God from the depths of his grief- 
stricken heart, for in him alone was all his hope. 
Brother Clair, distinguished for his virtue and learn- 



74 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 






ing, arose to exhort his brethren, and tried, with 
forcible reasons, to reassure them. Scarcely had he 
finished his discourse, when Master Roland of Cremo- 
na, a celebrated doctor of the university, a learned 
physician, and afterward the first friar who taught 
theology at Paris, entered the chapter-room. Dressed 
in rich scarlet, he had passed the whole of the day 
before with his friends, in pleasure and feasting. That 
night, touched by God's grace, he thought within 
himself: "Where is now the feasting of to-day? 
Where the happiness we have tasted ? " He under- 
stood that the joys of this world are soon changed into 
sorrow and mourning, and, moved by the Holy 
Ghost, came alone the next day to St. Nicholas, 
and, without giving any explanation, but as one in- 
fatuated, demanded admittance into the Order. At 
this sight Reginald, under sudden inspiration, did 
not wait till a habit should be brought, but, hastily 
taking off his own, therewith clothed Roland. The 
sacristan rang the bell, the chanter intoned the Veni 
Creator, and while the friars chanted it with tears, 
and voices tremulous with joy, a crowd of men, wo- 
men, and students, assembled at the convent. The 
whole city was agitated, devotion toward the friars 
was reanimated, the temptation vanished, and the 
two religious who had resolved to quit the Order, 
cast themselves on the floor, in the midst of the 



OF ST. GILES. 75 

chapter, acknowledged their fault, renounced their 
apostolic letters, and vowed to persevere till death. 

The following day our Lord, in a vision, greatly 
consoled Brother Rodolph, who was greatly afflicted 
at the discouragement of his brethren. Jesus Christ, 
having his blessed Mother on his right, and St. 
Nicholas on his left, appeared to him. St. Nicholas, 
placing his hand on Rodolph's head, said: iC Brother, 
fear nothing ; all will succeed for thee and thy Order, 
because Our Lady will care for you both." At 
these words he perceived, in the middle of the river 
which flows through Bologna, a ship filled with a 
multitude of friars, and St. Nicholas again said : 
" Thou beholdst all these religious? Fear nothing, 
fear nothing, I say: these are so many Friars Preachers, 
who shall one day be spread over the whole world." 

This prophetic vision was soon realized, and the 
convent of St. Nicholas, in a short time, became the 
nursery of saints, apostles, and doctors. A little after 
its foundation, a Bolognese student, very learned, 
but very worldly, was converted in the following 
manner : He seemed to be overtaken in the country 
by a violent storm. He ran for shelter to a house 
at a little distance, and, finding the door shut, knock- 
ed, and asked hospitality. The hostess replied : "I 
am Justice, and this is my house; but, because thou 
art not just, thou canst not enter here." Grieved, 



76 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

he went and knocked at another door: "I am Truth," 
replied a voice, "and will not receive thee, because 
Truth helps those only who love her." Having 
knocked at a third door, the inmate said : "I am 
Peace, but there is no peace for the wicked, but only 
for those of good will ; nevertheless, because my 
thoughts are thoughts of peace, and not of affliction, 
I will give thee good counsel : A little farther 
dwells my sister, Mercy, who ever hath compassion 
on the miserable. Go to her, and do as she shall com- 
mand." He directed his steps toward the house indi- 
cated, and Mercy, coming to meet him, said : "If 
thou wouldst be preserved from the storm, and saved 
from an imminent tempest, go to St. Nicholas, where 
dwell the Friars Preachers. There thou wilt find 
the stable of Penitence, the manger of Chastity, the 
food of Doctrine, the ass of Simplicity, the ox of 
Discretion ; Mary, who will enlighten thee ; Joseph, 
who will direct thee ; and Jesus, who will save thee. " 
On awakening, the young student meditated devout- 
ly on the vision, and hastened to follow the counsel 
of Mercy. Brother Tancred relates of himself that, 
being at Bologna, in quality of chevalier to the 
Emperor, Frederic II, he began to consider the 
dangers of his state, and implored the Blessed Virgin 
to watch over his eternal salvation. Mary appeared 
to him in a dream, and said: "Enter into my 



OF ST. GILES. 77 

Order/' He awoke, and, after having addressed a 
fervent prayer to Mary, again slept He then saw- 
two men, wearing the habit of the Friars Preachers. 
"You ask the Holy Virgin," said one of them, a 
venerable old man, " to direct you in the way of sal- 
vation ? Come to us, and you will be saved. " On the 
morrow, Tancred, who, as yet knew not the Order, 
believed the dream to be an illusion, and rising, 
begged his host to conduct him to a church, that he 
might hear Mass : he was accordingly conducted to 
the church of St. Nicholas. Scarcely had he enter- 
ed the cloister, when he saw coming toward him two 
friars, of whom one was the prior, Brother Richard, 
whom he immediately recognized as the old man of 
his dream. In a short time, having arranged his 
affairs, he left the world, and became a Friar Preach- 
er. A little after, he was sent to Rome, where history 
marks him prior of St. Sixtus and Santa Sabina. 

Directed and sustained by Master Reginald, the 
Friars of St. Nicholas made the practice of the 
religious life their greatest delight. They prayed, 
chanted the praises of the Lord, preached to the 
people, heard confessions without ceasing, and, by 
their piety, their fasts, their wisdom, and their 
virtues, mutually animated each other to love God, 
and make him loved, more and more, by the faith- 
ful. Silence was observed with scrupulous exactness. 



78 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

One night, after compline, a brother being prostrate 
before the altar, the demon seized him from behind, 
and dragged him, by the foot, to the middle of the 
church. At the cries of the brother, more than 
thirty friars, who were praying here and there, ran 
in haste to assist him, and, not seeing the demon, tried 
in vain to hold him. In their fear, they threw holy 
water on the brother by the handful, but without 
success. One of the oldest, endeavoring to hold 
him, was likewise dragged along. At length, after 
many efforts, he was conducted before the altar of 
St. Nicholas, and Reginald arriving at this moment, 
the brother confessed a mortal sin he had never de- 
clared, and was thus delivered from the hands of the 
devil. We may justly admire the rigor with which 
silence was observed after compline, since, on this 
occasion, in the midst of such a tumult, not one 
word was heard, save the first cry of the frightened 
brother. 

The least infraction of the rule, above all against 
the vow of poverty, was severely punished. A lay 
bi other having received, without permission, a piece 
of heavy cloth, Master Reginald immediately ordered 
rods to be brought, and caused the accursed cloth 
to be burned within the cloister, in presence of all 
the religious. The delinquent murmured, instead 
of humbly acknowledging his fault. Reginald bared 



OF ST. GILES. 



79 



the brother's shoulders, and raising his eyes, bathed 
in tears, said : ' ' O Lord Jesus Christ, who gavest to 
thy servant Benedict the power to expel the devil 
from the body of one of his religious, through the rod 
of discipline, grant me the grace to overcome, through 
the same means, the temptation of this poor brother." 
Then he struck him so sharply, that the brethren 
were moved to tears ; but the brother was reclaimed. 
" Father," said he, "I thank you, for you have 
truly driven the demon from me : I felt a serpent 
creep out of my veins whilst you struck me." From 
that day the brother made great progress in virtue, 
and became a good and humble religious. 

Another brother, tempted to leave the Order, was 
apprehended at the moment he was about to escape, 
and conducted to the chapter-room before Master 
Reginald. He acknowledged his fault, and Reginald 
commanded him to prepare to receive the discipline- 
He then began to chastise him sharply, and turning 
now to the culprit, while striking him, said: "Depart, 
demon, depart from this body; " then turning to the 
brethren, addressed them as follows: " Pray, pray, my 
brethren :" wishing thus, as it were, to drive out the 
demon by the double virtue of penance and prayer 
After having been disciplined in this manner for some 
time, the brother cried out : "Father, listen to me." 
"What do you wish, my son ? " replied Reginald. 



So LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

"I tell you truly," said he, "that the demon is 
gone, and I promise to persevere." At these words 
all the brethren, blessing God, rejoiced, and the 
brother was faithful till death. 

The guilty humbly received these wholesome cor- 
rections, for Reginald knew how to temper firmness 
with sweetness, and severity with affection. His 
children felt that, even whilst punishing them, he was 
still their father, after the example of God, who chas- 
tises because He loves ; and they gratefully kissed 
the hand that struck them, because therein they 
found the heart that directed the blows it inflicted. 

The arrival of St. *Dominic soon brought new 
consolation and encouragement to the Friars of St. 
Nicholas. Having visited the convents of Spain 
and France, in the summer of 1 2 1 9, accompanied by 
William of Montferrat, and a lay brother, he passed 
the Alps, and directed his steps toward Bologna, 
across the rich plains of Lombardy. Having stopped 
at Bergamo and Milan, he was received with renewed 
honor by the Canons Regular of St. Nazarus. 
Three learned jurists, moved by his preaching, asked 
to enter the Order. Dominic gave them the habit, 
and, together with them, pursued his journey. 

' ' On arriving at Bologna, " says Jourdain de Saxe, 
"he found a numerous assembly of friars, whom 
Reginald, by his care and zeal, was instructing in 



OF ST. GILES. 8 1 

the discipline of Christ. These received him, with 
joy and respect, as their father, and here he remained 
some time, that, by his counsels and example, 
he might fortify the youthful colony. Many of the 
brethren had never yet seen him, and, in impatience, 
awaited his coming, that they might know him 
whom Divine Providence had given them as father 
and founder. The whole city and the university, 
already excited by the eloquence of the disciple, 
desired to hear him, that they might know whether 
the eloquence of the disciple was that of the master. 
Faithful to his mission, Dominic preached before 
them, the consequence of which was an enthusias- 
tic revival of devotion. Distinguished clerics and 
learned doctors cast themselves at his feet, begging 
to be admitted among the number of his children/' 
But the youthful Diana d'Andalo surpassed all in 
the ardor of her joy and affection. Devoted to the 
cause of the friars, she now aspired to the habit of 
the Order, after the example of the nuns of Prouille 
and Madrid. "As soon as Dominic arrived at 
Bologna," says the chronicler already cited, * ' Diana 
became greatly attached to him, and consulted him 
concerning the salvation of her soul. After some 
time of probation, she made her vows at his hands, 
before the altar of St. Nicholas, in presence of 
Master Reginald, Brother Guala of Brescia, Brother 



82 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

Rodolph, and many ladies. Drawn by her example, 
the most noble families of the city confided their 
spiritual interests to the Friars Preachers. They, in 
turn, drew their relatives and friends after them ; since 
which time the convent of St. Nicholas has enjoyed 
the devotion and universal affection of the people. " 

Faithful to his maxim, "The seed must be sown, 
and not hoarded/' Dominic was not content with 
sending preachers to several cities in the north of 
Italy. The number of his brethren had considerably 
augmented. He sent several to found convents at 
Bergamo, Milan, Florence, and even at Barcelona, 
on the application of Berenger, its bishop. In pass- 
ing through Bologna, Berenger had learned from 
the erudite jurist, Raymond of Pennafort, that St. 
Dominic would soon follow him to his episcopal 
city. Finally, Dominic wished to finish the founding 
of the Order in France, and commanded his vicar, 
Brother Reginald, to report at Paris. 

Legend informs us that it was then it pleased God 
to unveil to Reginald the future destiny of the 
Order. " One day," says the same author, Jourdain 
de Saxe, "as Reginald was praying for the preserva- 
tion of his Order, he heard a voice which three 
times repeated the word, 'Dirigimur.' Frightened, 
he begged of heaven to know what the word 
signified. The voice replied : ' As long as the 






OF ST. GILES. 83 

Order shall be governed by generals whose names 
shall have for initials the letters that compose this 
word, ' JDirigimur/ it will prosper, but afterward it 
will begin to decay. And, in truth, D signified 
Dominic, / Jordan, R Raymond, / John the Teu- 
tonic, G Humbert, — in his time called Gumbert, — 
/ John of Verceil, M Munio, the Spaniard. This 
last was succeeded by Stephen, and, according to the 
oracle, the Order ceased to prosper." Reginald left 
Bologna towards the end of October, not without 
causing bitter regret to the hearts of the children he 
had lately enlisted to Christ, by the preaching of 
the Gospel, — faithful children, who wept to see them- 
selves so soon separated from a cherished father. 



84 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 



CHAPTER VI. 

Foundation and progress of the Convent of St. James. — 
Arrival of Reginald in Paris. — Apostolic letters to the 
Prior and Friars of St. James's. — Success of the preaching 
of Reginald. — He receives the vows of Jourdain de Saxe 
and of his friend, Henry of Cologne. — His illness and 
death. — His burial in the monastery of Notre Dame des 
Champs. 

(November, 1219-February, 1220.) 

The convent of St James of Paris, to which 
Reginald directed his steps, was, to the north of 
France, what St. Romain of Toulouse was to the 
south : the corner-stone of the Order. We shall 
briefly relate its foundation and progress. 

The seven Friars Preachers, sent to Paris after 
the chapter of Prouille, arrived there in the month 
of September, 1217. They bore apostolic letters, 
addressed to the chapter of Notre Dame, which 
authorized them to make the Order known. Being 
received with benevolence, and finding their establish- 
ment favored, they occupied a house between the 
Hotel Dieu and the episcopal palace. It was not 
without reason this location was selected. Here 
were united, in one place, Notre Dame, which 






OF ST. GILES* 85 

recalled to them the sanctuary of Prouille, and, 
moreover, it was a place where they could freely 
attend to the canonical office, with the chapter ; 
the Hotel Dieu, where they could exercise charity 
toward pilgrims, the poor and the sick : * the 
schools of the cloisters, which they could frequent, 
to perfect themselves in the sacred sciences ; and the 
episcopal residence, whence the bishop might call on 
their ministry. 

The sight of their poverty and virtue soon attract- 
ed the attention, and opened the hearts, of the people 
of Paris. From among the students and professors 
of the university, brilliant disciples came to them. 
One of the first was Henry of Marbourg, a holy 
man, whose preaching charmed both the clergy and 
laity. He has left us an account of his entrance 
into the Order. His uncle, Chevalier of Marbourg, 
watched over his childhood, and afterward sent him 
to Paris, to study philosophy. After death, the uncle 
appeared to Henry, and said : " Bear the cross in 
expiation of my sins, and go to the Crusade, now 
being preached. At your return from Jerusalem, 

* On arriving in cities where they were sent to found convents, our 
fathers preferred, after the example of St. Dominic, to lodge in hospices, 
there to receive hospitality, and exercise charity. When the piety and 
liberality of the faithful enabled them to build their cloisters, they took care 
also to build a hospice near by, where they received the poor and the 
pilgrim (thirteenth and fourteenth centuries). P. Masetti's " History of the 
Roman Province," vol. i, p. 255; 



86 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

you will find a new Order of Preachers, to whom 
you shall give yourself. You must be terrified 
neither at their poverty nor at the fewness of their 
number, for they shall become a great people, and 
shall be strengthened for the salvation of many." 
Henry went to the Crusade, and, on returning to 
Paris, found the friars just established. He entered 
the Order, and, shortly after, his uncle again appeared, 
to thank him for having thus delivered his soul from 
the flames of purgatory. Again we cite, among the 
doctors, Peter of Rheims, a celebrated preacher, and 
professor of Sacred Scripture, and, among the clerics, 
the young Guerric of Metz, rich by birth, and of rare 
beauty. One night, while the latter studied at his 
window, he heard a voice singing in French a refrain, 
which ran as follows : 

u Le temps s'en va, 

Et je ne travaille pas ; 
Le temps revient, 

Et je ne fais Tien." * 

He began to reflect first on the sweetness of the 
air, then on the sense of the words, and to consider 
how well they applied to his own life. Looking on 
them as an admonition from heaven, the next 

*" Time goes, 
And I labor not ; 

Time comes, 
And I produce not" 



OF ST. GILES. 87 

morning he left all, in order to dwell among the 
Friars Preachers, in the first house they occupied 
at Paris. 

Events justified more and more the predictions 
of Brother Lawrence of England. The city coun- 
cil, reorganized by Philip Augustus, in 1 1 90, ceded 
to the friars, for certain rents, the house wherein 
they assembled, commonly called the Parlor of Bur- 
gesses, situated near the wall of the enclosure. The 
Prince of Hautfeuille gave them his villa, and John 
of Baraste, the king's chaplain, dean of St. Quen- 
tin, and professor of the university, granted them the 
use of the chapel and hospice of St. James. These 
buildings were contiguous. The Friars Preachers 
hastened to arrange them for their instalment, and, 
on the 6th of August, of the following year, 1218, 
solemnly took possession of this new convent, which 
was afterward to bestow the appellation of Jacobin on 
all French Dominicans.* Several distinguished clerics 
received the habit ; other possessions and revenues 
were bestowed on them : in fine, as St. Dominic had 
foretold, they prospered in every manner. The com- 
munity numbered thirty when the holy founder came 
to Paris, in the month of May, 12 19. During his 

*Mamachi, p. 414; Mallet, p. 6; Echard, I, p. 17, L. It was not till 
the year 1221 that John of Baraste made a definite donation to the 
convent, and the university ceded all right to the chapel of St. James 
to the friars. 



88 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

short stay he preached several times, and his ever- 
fruitful eloquence brought new benefactors and new 
disciples to the Order. It was there he gave the habit 
to William of Montferrat, whom, at Cardinal Ugo- 
lino's, in Rome, he had intimately known. There 
they had enjoyed frequent spiritual conferences ; and 
it was agreed that William should become a Friar 
Preacher, as soon as he had studied theology two 
years at the University of Paris, after which, when the 
Order should be sufficiently established, they would 
travel together, and evangelize the north of Europe. 
Dominic made a still more precious conquest in 
the person of a young student, named Jourdain 
Born at Borrentrick, in the diocese of Paderborn, of 
the noble family of Herberstein, he had come to 
study at the university. In turn a master, he had 
written erudite works on grammar and mathe- 
matics. He was professor of theology at this time, 
and was expounding the Apocalypse, at the university. 
Not less pious than learned, this Jourdain cultivated 
with zeal that virtue which, according to the testi- 
mony of the apostle, is "useful in all things." His 
charity toward the poor and afflicted was such that, 
in spite of the mediocrity of his means, he seldom 
allowed the poor to pass without assistance, and 
every day gave, unsolicited, an alms to the first 
whom he met. While he studied theology, he as- 



OF ST. GILES. 89 

sisted regularly at Matins, in the Church of Notre 
Dame. One night, on a great feast, he arose with 
precipitation, thinking the bell for Office had already 
rung. He ran in haste to the Church, clothed only 
in his tunic, girdle, and cloak. On his way he met 
a beggar asking an alms, and, having nothing else 
to bestow, gave him his girdle. Arriving at the 
Church, he found the doors closed. After waiting 
some time, they were opened ; he entered, and knelt 
before a crucifix. As he gazed on it with devotion 
and love, he suddenly saw about its reins the girdle 
which, for the love of the Crucified, he had just 
given the beggar. 

Drawn toward St. Dominic, he opened his heart 
to him, and, by his advice, received the deaconship, 
but did not yet embrace the religious life. God re- 
served to Reginald the joy of receiving his vows, and 
of giving him to the Order, as a substitute for him- 
self, whose premature death was not far distant. 

Here, also, the hive was full, the harvest abundant 
Dominic desired to send out new swarms, and sow 
new seed. The preceding year, in passing through 
Toulouse, on his journey to Spain, he had sent 
Brother Arnold to preach, and to found a convent at 
Lyons. Alexander II, King of Scotland, was in the 
French capital, for the purpose of renewing the 
ancient alliance of his crown with the royal house of 



90 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

France. Dominic promised soon to send some 
Friars Preachers into his kingdom. At his com- 
mand Peter Cellani departed for Limoges, Philip 
for Rheims, William for Poitiers, and Guerric for 
Metz, where he first established himself in his pater- 
nal home. Some friars, poor and simple, the lowly 
germs of a rich harvest in the future, were also 
sent to Orleans. Before his departure, Dominic 
made known, as he had done at St. Romain, his 
plan for the cloisters, dormitories, and all regular 
places, of the new convent. He promised the 
brethren to obtain the pope's sanction to certain 
contested rights, and announced the coming of 
Reginald, whose vision and miraculous cure he 
related to them, in a public conference, at which 
Jourdain de Saxe was present. In quitting Paris, 
he carried with him a love of predilection for St. 
James. By inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he fore- 
saw that it would one day be the habitation of a 
multitude of friars, who would illuminate the 
Church by the lustre of their doctrine, and render 
her fruitful by the sanctity of their lives. 

Reginald arrived there one month after his de- 
parture from Bologna. All the brethren and their 
abbot (the first and last who bore the title of abbot 
in the Order of St. Dominic), Father Mathieu of 
France, who had known him at the university, re- 






OF ST. GILES. 91 

ceived him with the most lively testimonies of love 
and veneration. Shortly after, they received several 
apostolic letters, obtained by St. Dominic, who 
had found the pope at Yiterbo. The first granted 
them the faculty, so long desired, of publicly cele- 
brating the Divine Office in their church, which 
privilege, as well as the right of sepulture, had been 
refused them from the time of their instalment at 
St James's. As the Friars Preachers had not yet 
obtained these privileges, the cure of the parish 
and the chapter were only protecting their just rights 
in refusing them. The following is the tenor of the 
apostolic letter : 

" Honorius, Bishop, servant of the servants of 
God: 

"To our cherished sons, the Friars of the Order 
of Preachers, health and apostolic benediction ! 
Desiring to accede to your prayers, we grant you 
by these presents, the faculty of celebrating the 
Divine Office in the church which our well-beloved 
sons of the university have conceded to you, at 
Paris. 

" Given at Viterbo, the Calends of December (1st 
December), in the fourth year of our pontificate." * 

The Sovereign Pontiff, learning the opposition to 
the friars offered by the cur6 of the parish of St. 

* See Document VIII. 



92 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

Bennet, and the chapter of Notre Dame, appointed 
a commission, charged to regulate this difference. 

"Honorius, Bishop, servant of the servants of 
God: 

"To our dear sons, the Priors of St. Denis and 
St. Germain of the Meadows, of the diocese of 
Paris, and the chancellor of the church of Milan, 
living in Paris, health and apostolic benediction. 

' ' We have judged proper to authorize our well- 
beloved sons, the Prior and Brethren of the Order of 
Preachers, to celebrate the Divine Office in a certain 
church in Paris, founded in honor of St. James, and 
at present in their possession. But the members of 
the chapter of that city, as we are informed, have 
the presumption to refuse them the privilege, a 
thing quite unbecoming, above all, in the presence 
of the faculty accorded by the Holy See. Far from 
preventing, it should be the aim of each one to 
assist and favor them ; for, if they desire to celebrate 
in their church, it should be regarded as done, not 
through a motive of temporal interest, but for the 
greater honor of God. We have, then, resolved to 
ask, and signify expressly by letters of mandate 
which we have addressed the chapter, that the said 
prior and friars be freely permitted to celebrate the 
Office in their church. Besides, we recommend the 
chapter to favor this new nursery, which we trust will 



OF ST. GILES. 93 

produce abundant fruits, to the end that it may in- 
crease under the dew of benevolence, and the chap- 
ter itself may arrive at the enjoyment of eternal 
recompense. For this reason we command you, by 
the present apostolic letters, to regulate this affair, 
to appoint, according as you, in your wisdom, shall 
judge fit, the indemnity due to the chapter and the 
neighboring churches, and cause to be rigorously 
observed, by ecclesiastical censures, that which you 
shall decide. In cases where all cannot cooperate 
to fulfil this mandate, two among you will suffice. 

" Given at Viterbo, the third of the Ides of De- 
cember (December nth), in the fourth year of our 
pontificate." * 

This misunderstanding was settled some months 
after. The Friars Preachers resigned themselves to 
accept onerous conditions, which at least proved 
their disinterestedness and wisdom, f 

Honorius III, wishing to give them a new proof 
of his paternal solicitude, and to fortify them in their 
trials and apostolic labors, the next day addressed 
them the following bull : 

"Honorius, Bishop, servant of the servants of 
God: 

"To our well-beloved sons, the Prior and 
Brethren of the Order of Preachers. The fervor of 

* See Document IX. t See Document X. 



94 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

your spirit has made you cast far from you the burden 
of terrestrial goods. Shod for the preaching of the 
Gospel, you have undertaken to preach for the sal- 
vation of souls, in abjection and voluntary poverty, 
and to expose yourselves to numberless fatigues and 
perils. We trust your labors will produce abundant 
fruit; and, wishing to strengthen you in your holy 
resolution, enjoin you to bear, in satisfaction for 
your sins, the sufferings and privations you endure 
in the discharge of your holy ministry. 

" Given at Viterbo, the second of the Ides of 
December (December 12th), in the fourth year of 
our pontificate. "* 

These encouraging letters inspired the Friars 
Preachers of St. James with renewed ardor, but the 
example of Reginald still more enkindled their 
hearts. As soon as he arrived in Paris, without 
taking into account the fatigues of a long journey, 
and a prolonged apostolate, he began to preach 
Jesus Christ crucified, with unabated zeal. The 
people of Paris regarded him as a man come from 
heaven, so much was his angelic life given to the 
work of preaching. A witness of his austerities, 
Mathieu of France, who had known him when 
living in the midst of honors, and the delicacies of 
the world, sometimes asked in astonishment if it 

* See Document XI. 



OF ST. GILES. 95 

were not burdensome for him to have embraced 
such a life. ' ' No, " he would reply, his eyes always 
modestly cast down ; "I even think it is without 
any merit on my part, for I have always enjoyed 
such infinite consolations, that I scarcely feel these 
austerities." All the friars regarded him with 
admiration and tenderness, and gained confidence 
on seeing his destiny united to the destinies of the 
Order. They thought, if their founder should be 
taken from them, to find another father and master 
in Reginald. But they were mistaken in their 
conjectures, for Reginald was of the number of 
those saints who accomplish much in a short time. 
However, before taking him from the Order, God 
wished to give him the consolation of drawing to 
it two disciples, worthy of his own exalted sanctity, 
Jourdain de Saxe, and his friend, Henry of Cologne. 
We will quote Jourdain's account of their common 
vocation, as it is the first and most beautiful page 
in history, concerning friendship, in the Dominican 
cloisters : 

"Brother Reginald, of happy memory, having 
come to Paris, was preaching there with such forcible 
eloquence, that I was touched with divine grace, 
and resolved, and made an interior vow, to enter his 
Order. I believed I had found an assured harbor 
of salvation, such as I had often represented to my- 



96 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

self, before knowing the friars. This resolution 
having been made, I used every effort to draw the 
companion and friend of my heart to make a like 
vow, for, on account of his gifts, both of nature and 
grace, I saw in him a surprising disposition for the 
ministry of preaching. This friend was Henry, after- 
ward prior of Cologne, a man whom I loved in Christ 
with an affection much greater than I ever bestowed 
on another. He was a true vessel of honor and 
perfection, such, indeed, that I do not remember 
ever to have seen another so gracious. Since he 
early entered the joy of the Lord, it will not be 
amiss to relate some of his admirable virtues. 

" Brother Henry was, according to the world's idea, 
of distinguished birth, and, while quite young, was 
made canon of Utrecht. A canon of the same 
church, a man of wealth and great piety, carefully 
brought him up from his earliest years in the dis- 
cipline and fear of the Lord. As the holy man had 
triumphed over the seductions of the world, by cruci- 
fying his flesh, and giving himself to good works, 
so had he formed the soul of the youthful Henry to 
the practice of every virtue. He made him wash 
the feet of the poor, visit the churches, inspired him 
with horror for sin, contempt for luxury, and love 
for purity. Henry, endowed with an excellent 
nature, was docile to his teachings, and readily 



OF ST. GILES. 97 

practised virtue. Thus, as he grew in age, he in- 
creased in virtue to such a degree that, in conversa- 
tion, one would have taken him for an angel, and 
have considered his virtue innate. He afterward 
came to Paris, and applied himself to the study of 
theology. We lodged in the same hotel, and daily 
intercourse engendered in our hearts a strong and 
lasting friendship. I strove to make him partake 
of my resolution to become a Friar Preacher. He 
refused, but I redoubled my efforts. I obtained 
that he should go and confess to Brother Reginald, 
in order that he might receive counsel. Returning, 
he opened the Scripture at the book of the prophet 
Isaias, as if to seek an omen, when his eyes fell on 
the following words : ' The Lord hath given me a 
learned tongue, that I should know how to uphold 
by word him that is weary : he wakeneth in the 
morning ; in the morning he wakeneth my ear, that 
I may hear him as a master. The Lord God hath 
opened my ear, and I do not resist ; I have not gone 
back/ (Isaias 1, 4, 5. ) I pointed to the passage, and 
said how well it applied to his situation, and that 
these words seemed to come from heaven for him, for 
he was very eloquent. At the same time I exhorted 
him to submit his spirit to the yoke of obedience. He 
noted, a few lines lower, the words, ' Let us stand 
together/ which seemed to admonish us not to 



9 8 



LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 



separate, but to embrace, the one and the other, the 
same sublime ministry. It was in allusion to this 
circumstance that, long afterward, writing to me, 
while in Italy, from Germany, he said : ' Where now 
is the ' ' Let us stand together, " you at Bologna, and 
I at Cologne ?' I answered, ' What greater merit, 
what more glorious crown, than to participate in the 
poverty of Jesus Christ and his apostles, by despising 
the world for love of him ? ' His reason admitted 
that I spoke truly, but his will, still weak and reluc- 
tant, persuaded him to the contrary. 

"This same night he went to hear Matins in the 
church of the Blessed Virgin, and remained there 
till morning, praying and imploring the Mother of 
God to overcome his reluctance. Believing he had 
obtained nothing, because his heart still seemed 
hardened, he began to sigh, and, rising to go, said 
interiorly : l Now, O Virgin blessed ! I feel that you 
love me not, and that there is no room for me 
among the poor of Christ/ He spoke thus, because 
the desire of voluntary poverty possessed his heart 
since the day on which our Lord had shown him 
with what assurance one who had embraced it would 
stand before the Sovereign Judge. In a vision he 
seemed to be in the presence of Christ, surrounded 
by a multitude of those who judged, and those who 
were judged. Henry was among the latter, and, 



OF ST. GILES, 99 

certain of the rectitude of his conscience, hoped to 
receive a favorable sentence. Suddenly one of 
those seated at the side of the Judge, extending his 
hand toward him, said : ' Thou who standest there, 
tell us what thou hast ever abandoned for the Lord ?■' 
This question, so pressing, terrified him : he had 
nothing to reply. Then the vision vanished, and 
this admonition of heaven made him desirous of 
attaining the summit of evangelical poverty, but he 
could not resolve on the sacrifice. As related above, 
he was leaving the church, sad and dejected, when 
He who regards the humble, overcame the obstinacy 
of his heart ; tears bedewed his cheeks ; his soul 
expanded beneath God's inflaming love ; the yoke 
of self-will was broken by the violence of infused 
grace, and he who had so lately been weighed 
down with grief, now, softened by a celestial unction, 
embraced all things as light and easy. He arose, 
and going in haste to Reginald, pronounced his vow 
before him. Then he came to me, and as I saw 
traces of tears on his angelic face, I asked whence 
he came. He replied : * I have made a vow to the 
Lord and will accomplish it V We, however, de- 
ferred our clothing till Lent, and, in the interval, 
gained over one of our companions, Brother Leon, 
who succeeded Brother Henry in the office of 
prior/' 



IOO LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

It was ordained that Reginald should die without 
giving to these two cherished disciples the habit 
which it had been his happiness to bestow on so 
many others. It was necessary that this pure grain 
of wheat should die on earth, and live in heaven, to 
bring these two magnificent ears to perfect maturity. 
From the day Reginald became a Friar Preacher, he 
had given himself, without reserve, to the love of God, 
and the salvation of souls. Less than two years of 
an apostolate, whose labors equalled his ardor, had 
sufficed to exhaust his strength. Toward the end 
of January, 1220, he was attacked by a grave mal- 
ady. At the approach of his last hour, Brother 
Mathieu of France asked if he would not permit 
Extreme Unction to be administered, in order that 
his soul might be fortified against the last struggle 
with death. "I fear not this struggle,''' replied 
Blessed Reginald, " I await it, and claim it with joy. 
I long to join the Mother of Mercy, in whom I have 
placed all my confidence. She anointed me at Rome 
with her own hands, but, lest I may appear to de- 
spise the Unction of the Church, I desire and humbly 
ask to receive it." 

Reginald received the last sacraments with the 
liveliest sentiments of faith and devotion. Then he 
desired them to lay him on ashes, and, surrounded 
by his sorrow-stricken brethren, who, bathed in tears, 



OF ST. GILES. 1 01 

were imploring God's assistance in his behalf, calmly 
slept in the Lord, after having been on earth an 
intrepid lover of poverty and humility. As the 
friars had not yet a place of burial in their own 
convent, he was buried in the monastery of Notre 
Dame des Champs. He died early in February, 
perhaps on the day the Church celebrates the twin 
feasts of the presentation of our Lord in the temple, 
and the purification of his holy Mother. 

A few days before his death, a Friar Preacher had 
seen in a dream a limpid fountain, which suddenly 
ceased to flow, and two other fountains immediately 
gushed forth to replace it. Jourdain de Saxe, who 
relates this vision, humbly adds: "If it betoken 
anything real, I am too conscious of my own sterility 
to dare give an interpretation. I only know that 
Reginald received at Paris but two postulants to the 
religious profession : I was the first, and Henry of 
Cologne, my friend in the Lord, was the second. " 

Jourdain again adds : "The same night on which 
the soul of the holy man departed this life, I, who 
did not yet wear the habit, though I had made my 
vows in his hands, saw in a dream the friars in a 
vessel, in the midst of the sea. Suddenly the vessel 
was submerged, but the friars gained the shore in 
safety. I am of opinion that this vessel denoted 
Master Reginald, whom all the friars regarded as 



102 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

their guide and support. A few days after, when the 
Church recalls to the faithful, by the administration 
of ashes, that of dust we are made, and unto dust we 
shall return, we disposed ourselves to profit of the 
holy time of penance, by fulfilling our vow. As yet 
those who lived in the same hotel with us knew not 
of our plans. One of them, seeing Brother Henry 
going out, said to him : ' Where are you going, 
Henry ?' ' I am going/ said he, ' to Bethania ; • a 
reply which was not understood, but which the 
event explained, for Bethania signifies, in Hebrew, 
the house of obedience. We went (Brother Leon, 
mentioned before, accompanying us) to the convent 
of St. James. Just as the friars were chanting the 
'Immutemur habitu/ — (Chant of the Habit), — we 
appeared in their midst, in a manner unforeseen, but 
not inopportune, and immediately casting off the 
old man, put on the new, so that by our coming the 
chant of the brethren was realized. " 

Gerard de Frachet relating, in his turn, the vision 
which the modesty of Jourdain de Saxe did not permit 
him to interpret, expresses himself in the following 
manner : " A pious religious, of the Order of Preach- 
ers, saw in a dream a limpid fountain suddenly 
gush forth in the cloister of St. James, and near it, 
in the same place, he saw a large river, which, wind- 
ing first through the city, spread its waters through- 



OF ST. GILES. 



[O3 



out the whole land. It purified and fertilized the 
soil, and, still increasing, charmed all men as it 
flowed to the sea. In effect, Jourdain de Saxe 
appeared in Paris immediately after the death of 
Blessed Reginald. He at first expounded to his 
brethren the Gospel of St. Luke, with the greatest 
success, then preached here and there along the sea, 
for more than fifteen years, manifesting Jesus Christ, 
by word and example. We believe he received into 
the Order more than a thousand religious. Pleas- 
ing to God, devoted to the popes and the Roman 
Church, he exhorted the faithful and the clergy to do 
penance, and thus enter the kingdom of heaven. 
This blessed father, like the river, finally finished 
his course in the sea, and, like St. Clement, there 
found the way to heaven, and entered, without delay, 
into the joys of the Lord." 

It was thus the friars were saved when their ves- 
sel was submerged, and the convent of St. James saw 
two springs gush forth to replace the limpid fountain 
that had ceased to flow. It was thus that Reginald, 
that pure grain of wheat, dead on earth, but living 
in heaven, renewed and multiplied himself, by 
giving to the Order those two resplendent ears, — 
Jourdain de Saxe, and Henry of Cologne. 



104 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 



CHAPTER VII. 

The veneration of Blessed Reginald ; its authenticity, anti- 
quity, and continuity. — Proofs and testimonies. 

When Reginald had rendered his soul into the 
hands of God, men were not the first to venerate him ; 
heaven prevented them by miracles, and angels were 
the heralds of him who had been their imitator on 
earth. They spread the report of his death and 
virtues throughout the world. People ran in crowds 
to his tomb, and he who had converted sinners 
during life, cured them of their maladies after 
death. Although the place of his burial was the 
theatre where God made known, with greater 
brilliancy, the sanctity of Reginald, yet the reputa- 
tion of his holiness extended even to Italy ; and 
those who had known him at Bologna experienced 
the effects of his assistance. We have already re- 
lated the visions with which it pleased God to favor 
two of his servants at Paris. At Bologna he was 
pleased to reveal the glory that Reginald enjoyed. 
Brother Raymond of Lausanne, a man worthy of 
belief, and of great piety, relates that, while he was 
infirmarian of the convent at Bologna, he put off 



OF ST. GILES. IO5 

calling the community to the bed-side of a dying 
friar, and went to take his own rest. Having come 
to see the invalid, after Matins, he inquired concern- 
ing his health. " Ah !" replied the dying brother, 
"what have you done? If I had received the 
Viaticum last evening, I should now be in the palace 
I saw to-night, where dwell Brother Reginald, 
Brother Humbert, and other holy religious, lately 
deceased. At my entrance they joyously ran to 
meet me, and seated me in their midst. Whilst we 
were in the enjoyment of our happiness, our Lord 
entered, and said to me : ' Thou must leave here, 
because thou hast not yet partaken of the sacra- 
ment of my love/ Hence, I believe if I had re- 
ceived the holy Viaticum last night, I should now 
be in the abode of bliss, with our saints and fathers. " * 
Reginald was buried in the monastery of Notre Dame 
des Champs. This was done, not only because the 
friars, as yet, did not enjoy the right of sepulture in 
their own convent, but because Reginald, before his 
death, had expressed a desire to this effect. And 
why should we be surprised at it ? The church of 
Notre Dame des Champs had been built, at the com- 
mencement of the ninth century, on the southern 

* Dom Mabillon observes, in his u Preface to the Sixth Benedictine Age," 
that before the thirteenth century the Church was accustomed to admin- 
ister Extreme Unction before the Viaticum. 



106 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

slope of Mount St. Genevieve, in a vast plain, where 
begins the Roman road that leads to Orleans. The 
pagans of ancient Lutece buried their dead in this 
place, and a tradition dear to even* Parisian, and 
religiously observed from age to age. assures us 
that here St Denis, their first bishop, frequently 
took refuge during the persecutions. Here, in a 
subterranean vault, he assembled his disciples and 
the faithful around an altar, where he celebrated the 
divine mysteries, and taught them the truths of 
religion. This place numbered, among its relics, a 
picture of the Blessed Virgin, holding the Infant 
Jesus in her arms, which is said to have been 
painted by St. Luke the Evangelist. Here, too, the 
persecutors found St Denis, and. loading him with 
chains, led him to martyrdom. Since then the faith- 
ful, rilled with veneration for this sacred spot, the 
glorious cradle of their Church, transformed it into 
a sanctuary, which, later on, served as a crypt to 
the church of Notre Dame des Champs. All these 
remembrances charmed the heart of Reginald. 
There he had often gone to pray, with fervor, to St 
Denis and the Blessed Virgin, the latter of whom 
had deigned to appear to him at Rome, had cured 
him, and indicated to him the Order to which he 
was to consecrate the remainder of his days. At 
the approach of death, knowing that he could not 



OF ST. GILES. 107 

repose in the midst of his brethren, he desired at 
least to repose in the shadow of that sanctuary, and 
under the gaze of "her whom he so much longed 
to join in heaven. " This is shown by the inscrip- 
tion engraven on his tomb, of which Father Mallet 
(page 49) has preserved the following translation : 
"The Blessed Reginald ordered his burial in this 
place, where his glorious body reposes, whence 
many miracles are performed, and all sorts of fevers 
cured." This tomb was in the little cemetery of 
the monastery of Notre Dame, which belonged to the 
Benedictines. It was on the south side of the 
cloister and church, and near a picture of the 
Blessed Virgin, painted from the original, brought 
by St. Denis. The Benedictines of Notre Dame 
des Champs were, from the first, most kind and 
benevolent toward the Friars Preachers of St. James. 
They eagerly responded to the wish of Blessed 
Reginald, and buried him with every honor, within 
their cloister. The Sovereign Pontiff, wishing to 
testify his joy and gratitude, addressed them the 
following Bull, on the 26th of February : 

" Honorius, Bishop, servant of the servants of 
God : 

"To our cherished sons, the Prior and religious 
of Sainte Marie des Vignes, * without the gates of 

* The monastery was also called Sainte Marie des Vignes. 



IOS LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

Paris, salvation and apostolic benediction. We learn, 
with joy and gratitude, that you have received, in the 
bonds of charity, our dear sons of the Friars of the 
Order of Preachers, who study sacred theology at 
Paris, and that you have, by your pious services, 
favored them in a manner worthy of praise. We 
consider what you have done to be a work agreeable 
to God, for, if ecclesiastic goods are exclusively con- 
secrated to the Lord, we can make no better use of 
them than by mercifully assisting those who, filled 
with ardor for the salvation of souls, joyously draw 
water from the fountain's head, and carry it to 
public places, as a refreshment to thirsty hearts, and 
a salutary remedy for arrlicted souls. That you may 
fully understand how sincere is the affection we bear 
these friars, we pray, admonish, and enjoin you, by 
these presents, to continue to favor them, as you 
have already done, through love for the Holy See 
and us. We earnestly recommend you to treat them 
benevolently, to the end that God may be more 
mercifully disposed toward you and us. 

"Given at Viterbo, the fourth of the calends of 
March (February 26th), in the fourth year of our 
pontificate. "* 

After the death of Reginald, the people of Paris, 
whom his eloquence had so often drawn around his 

* See Document XII. 






OF ST. GILES. 109 

pulpit, ran in crowds to his tomb. The report of 
his virtues, of his being anointed, and of his miracu- 
lous cure, had spread among the people. Admon- 
ished by a secret instinct that his ' ' bones would 
prophesy," they came to be cured of fevers, both of 
body and soul, as he himself had been by the 
Queen of Heaven. Their piety and devotion were 
not deceived. Reginald proved the power of his 
intercession, by numberless miracles, and some years 
after his death, the crowd of pilgrims kneeling at 
his tomb recited in his honor the following anthem 
and prayer : 

Anthem. 

"O Blessed Reginald, agreeable to God, cher- 
ished by the Queen of Angels, who deigned to 
visit you in your illness, to heal you of all fevers by 
an admirable unction, and to bestow on you the habit 
of the Preachers, at the same time delivering you 
from all fevers of sins, heal the ills of our souls by 
the merits of your prayers, that, admitted to the 
assembly of the saints, we may one day contemplate, 
with you, the King of Angels." 

Pray&r. 

" Grant, we beseech Thee, O omnipotent God ! 
that we who are continually tormented by the 



HO LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

fevers of our sins, may, through the intercession of 
Blessed Reginald, thy confessor, enjoy the perpetual 
blessing of health, through Jesus Christ our Lord. " 

Prodigies increased with the confidence of the 
people. The sick, without numbers, cured by his 
intercession, came from all. parts, to gratify their 
devotion, and render him new honors, at his humble 
tomb. The walls of his tomb represented, in fresco, 
the principal events of his life. It was raised six 
inches above ground, and on it was engraved the in- 
scription given above. The devotion of the people 
preserved itself in its primitive fervor till the epoch 
of the civil and religious wars, which ravaged France 
in the latter part of the sixteenth century. At the 
commencement of the following century, a particular 
circumstance prevented the renewal and propagation 
of this devotion. Cardinal Chevreuse, overcome by 
the eontinual requests of the Duchess of Longueville, 
ceded to her the Priory of Notre Dame des Champs, 
of which he was temporary abbot, for the establish- 
ment in France of the Reform of St. Theresa. The 
first French Carmel was solemnly installed there on 
the 1 6th of October, 1604. It was not without a pro- 
vidential design that this place was selected, in pre- 
ference to all others, for the establishment of the 
Carmelites. The magnanimous heart of St. Theresa 



OF ST. GILES. Ill 

was inflamed with love for France, on seeing it 
ravaged by the heresies of Luther and Calvin. "It 
seems to me," she would say, "that I would give 
my life a thousand times to save one soul that is 
being lost there." The same sentiments animated 
her daughters ; and when the first Spanish Mothers 
arrived in Paris, they rejoiced much to find their 
Carmel in a sanctuary consecrated by so many sacred 
remembrances, and which so well corresponded to 
their apostolic spirit. The remembrance of Blessed 
Reginald was piously preserved, together with that of 
the Blessed Virgin and St. Denis. He had his part 
of predestination, "for" says Pere Senault (page 
80), " if it is permitted to judge of the designs of God, 
by the events that pass, there was a reason why this 
church should be given to the Carmelites. God 
wished to honor it as the sacred deposit of Reginald's 
remains, and leave the body of an angel to the 
watchful care of virgins, who, striving to imitate 
their holy mother, lived like angels on earth. " 

The Carmelite religious were not forgetful of 
their trust. As soon as they were established at 
Notre Dame des Champs, they strove to revive the 
veneration of Blessed Reginald, which they knew had 
formerly been popular among the people of Paris. 
According to the testimony of an eye-witness, 
quoted by the editor of the " Annee Dominicaine," 



112 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

of August, volume II, page 82, Supplement to the 
month of March, search was made to discover his 
tomb, but at first without success. The follow- 
ing document is kept in the Carmelite monastery : 
" There were against the wall of the church, on the 
side now occupied by the confessionals, and the 
great staircase of the de profundis, a painting and 
some writings of this saint. Almost opposite the 
door was seen a large tomb of stone, elevated about 
half a foot above ground, under which we were 
accustomed to say the body of the saint reposed, 
and this was the common tradition. The Cardinal 
of Berulle, superior of the Carmelites, thought it 
would be well to remove the body, in order that it 
might be more honored ; but the superioress of the 
monastery, who was to conduct the work, deemed it 
advisable, before making the design public, to ascer- 
tain, for a certainty, that the body really rested there. 
The cardinal considered the idea a good one, and 
accordingly one night, at eight or nine o'clock, the 
work began, no one being present but those carrying 
on the design, and one or two workmen, whom the 
superioress caused to dig without the wall of the 
tomb, she herself assisting in removing the clay from 
underneath. When the work was nearly completed, 
the cardinal came, and, on examining the tomb, 
found nothing there. Rejoiced that they had acted 



OF ST. GILES. 113 

so cautiously, they resolved to keep the matter secret, 
in order to let the faithful continue in the opinion 
they held, and not to destroy the reverence there 
rendered to this holy religious. It was known to 
none ; not even the workmen knew why they dug 
away the earth. The cardinal said that the remains 
of this saint had been translated, and placed in some 
monastery of his Order, because the tomb and paint- 
ing were an evidence that he once rested there." 

It is easy to explain why these first efforts were 
unsuccessful. The Carmelites had not, at their first 
instalment, acquired all the dependencies of the 
ancient priory. They were not in possession of the 
picture of the Blessed Virgin, and the tomb of Blessed 
Reginald, till about the year 1630, one year after 
the death of the Cardinal of Berulle. Necessity 
then compelled them to enlarge their monastery, 
and we will cite their annals for the result : "The 
picture of the Blessed Virgin, which tradition says 
was brought to France by St. Denis, had been, for 
some time, without the church, as "The Antiquities 
of Paris" informs us. The religious of the monastery 
being obliged to enlarge their convent, added to it 
from the south side of the church, a part of which 
joined the cloister, and by this means found them- 
selves in possession of this rare monument." 

The Reverend Mother Magdalen of St Joseph, 



114 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

then prioress, greatly rejoiced at the heritage she 
acquired for her daughters. She expressed her 
gratitude in a particular manner, in her last allocution, 
addressed to them at the expiration of her term of 
office, May 16th, 1635, and, during the two remain- 
ing years of her life, ceased not to testify her desire 
to find the tomb and body of Blessed Reginald. 
The remembrance of him was still green in the 
hearts of the people of Paris, but the precise spot of 
his tomb was no longer known. The ravages of 
time, and the devotion of pilgrims who had come to 
kneel there during more than three centuries, had 
effaced the inscription on his tomb, which the 
Carmelites tried to discover and recognize among 
so many others. We will again cite their annals, in 
the year 1 64 1 : 

"About this time the Reverend Mother Magdalen 
of Jesus, occupied in fulfilling, as far as possible, 
the designs of the Blessed Mother Magdalen of St. 
Joseph, whom she succeeded in the government of 
the monastery, resolved on neglecting nothing to 
find the remains of Blessed Reginald of St. Giles, 
one of the first disciples of St. Dominic. The side 
of the church which contained this sacred deposit, 
was, since the enlargement of the house, within the 
cloister of the monastery. The religious endeavored 
to find the exact spot of the tomb, and, for this 



OF ST. GILES. 



115 



purpose, Mother Magdalen of Jesus obtained the 
necessary permission to permit persons of the neigh- 
borhood to enter the cloister and examine the tombs. 
She chose people of means, as many men as women, 
who had visited the church in their childhood, 
nearly all of whom were eighty years old, and 
upward. This venerable assembly was conducted 
to the cloister of the convent, where, perceiving a 
large tomb of stone, eight or nine feet long, all 
affirmed it to be the one anciently known as the 
tomb of Blessed Reginald, to which the people came, 
through devotion to the saint. They alleged that 
parents brought their children here, to be cured of 
their ills ; that they offered many candles and tapers, 
which, after their devotions were made, they threw 
into a dry well, near by. They, moreover, added that, 
such was the quantity of tapers thrown, that the 
acristans of this ch urch had sometimes drawn from 
this well as many as three hundred pounds at a time. 
As a proof of what they said, they pointed out a 
pillar opposite the tomb, still covered with wax, which 
had dropped from the tapers attached to it, and had 
become blackened by their smoke. In fine, they 
declared the devotion of the people of Paris toward 
the saint to have been so great, that whole parishes 
came in procession to visit his tomb ; a thing which 
it was impossible to prevent, although these same 



Il6 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

people were informed that it was not permitted to 
render such honors to any but to those saints whom 
the Church had canonized. The proof of what the 
old people avowed was found in a decree against 
this abuse, which, with other regulations, made at 
the same time by the chapter of Notre Dame, is 
still extant. **• 

"This devotion of the people for Blessed Reginald 
remained in all its vigor till the civil wars, and was 
numbered among the traditions which the piety of 
the faithful receives with respect. The decree of the 
said chapter, in reforming the abuse, serves as a 
manifest proof of the sanctity of Reginald. It 
only remains for us to remark that the relics of the 
saint having been found, as cited above, were taken 
up, encased in a silver coffin, and placed in the 
hermitage of Notre Dame des Anges, where his 
tomb was, and where his portrait may still be seen. 
His remains have since been removed to the Chapel 
of the Saints.*' * The piety of the Carmelite Religious 
was not content with the honors given him in the 
translation of his relics, but they arranged a bio- 
graphy of his life, in order to revive his memory 
and veneration in the hearts of the people. Pere 
Senault, of the Oratory, published this biography in 
the year 1 64 5. In his letter of dedication to the Rev- 

* Among the relics of the monastery is a statue of Reginald. 



OF ST. GILES. 117 

erend Mother of the Monastery of the Incarnation, 
he said : " I think I should offend Divine Providence 
did I not dedicate to you the Life of a Saint whose 
relics he has bestowed on you. Since you so piously 
preserve his body, it is to be supposed you imbibe 
his spirit, and will rejoice if, in following the example 
your piety has given, by erecting a chapel to his 
memory, I should write a panegyric of his virtues, in 
order to make known a saint whom the Blessed 
Virgin herself wished to honor. The favors he 
received from her oblige you to look on him as a 
household saint ; and the pledge you have of his 
love makes me hope you will not take amiss that, 
uniting his spirit to his body, I here present it en- 
tirely to you." On the eighteenth page of his work, 
he adds: "So well do they cherish this precious 
pledge that, besides having it enclosed within their 
cloister, of which the right wing of the ancient 
church is now a part, they have built a chapel, 
the wainscoting of which is enchased with several 
pictures representing the principal events in the 
life of the happy servant of Jesus Christ. We still 
see there some ancient paintings representing the 
Blessed Virgin giving him the habit." 

The sepulchral stone, the reliquary, the statue 
and the paintings of Blessed Reginald, completely 
disappeared in the revolutionary troubles that de- 



Il8 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

stroyed the convents and churches, near the end of 
the last century ; but the Carmelites of the Rue 
cTEnfer, always faithful to their family tradition, have 
not ceased to honor and invoke him as a household 
saint. These nuns now possess but a small part of 
their ancient monaster}', the construction of which 
was entirely changed in 1S56. The mother-prioress, 
Sister Mary A., of the Presentation, wrote, on the 3d 
of May, 1870, to Rev. F. Tournel, Prior of the 
Dominicans of Paris: "I thank you a thousand 
and a thousand times for your kindness in sending 
me the panegyric pronounced in your chapel in 
honor of Blessed Reginald. It has for our monas- 
ter}' a double interest. I would like to give a favor- 
able reply to the questions lately asked me by one of 
your fathers, but I find in our register that, during the 
great revolution, when the convent was pillaged, the 
reliquaries were carried oft, and the relics cast aside. 
Our Mother gathered up all tnose that still bore their 
names ; the others were buried in an unknown cor- 
ner of our garden." 

The homage paid to Blessed Reginald was not 
confined to the monaster}- of Notre Dame des 
Champs. The convent of St. James, and all the 
Dominican cloisters, were so many centres whence 
this homage shone forth in the examples, the preach- 
ing, and writings of the Friars Preachers. Filled with 



OF ST. GILES. 119 

veneration for his memory, all invoked him as a 
powerful intercessor before God ; and many, in re- 
ceiving the habit the Blessed Virgin had shown him, 
desired to receive his name, in order to place their 
new life under his protection. St. Vincent Ferrer 
often celebrated the holy sacrifice in the church of 
the convent of Valencia, before a painting whereon 
the Blessed Reginald figured by the side of the 
Blessed Virgin, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Peter Martyr, 
and St. Augustine. St. Catherine of Sienna, in her 
ecstasies, saw him shine with particular glory among 
all the saints of the Order. Brother Bartholomew 
of Sienna thus deposes, in the process of her canon- 
ization: "St. Dominic often showed St. Catherine 
the saints and blessed members of his Order. She 
seeing one among them more brilliant than the 
others, and who, she said, was called Brother Regi- 
nald, asked me at what period he lived. I at the 
moment only remembered a religious of that name, 
who had been companion and confessor to St. 
Thomas Aquin, but Catherine did not accept my 
response. Thinking further of the matter, I con- 
cluded and believe it was Brother Reginald, whom 
St. Dominic received at Rome, a short time after 
the confirmation of his Order, and of whom legend 
relates several marvellous circumstances." The 
Preachers published everywhere the wonders of his 



120 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

virtues and miracles, and thus made devotion to him 
popular among the faithful. Chroniclers and his- 
torians related his life, and perpetuated his memory, 
from age to age. In writing of him, their hearts 
glowed with feelings of tenderest love; and some- 
times, overcome by devotion, we see them suspend 
their narration, in order to address invocations to 
the blessed object of their admiration. 

Art, faithful interpreter of the fidelity and piety of 
the people, strove to do its part in transferring his 
memory to succeeding generations. We have already 
related what was done to honor Blessed Reginald in 
the convent of Notre Dame des Champs, but it was 
more particularly in the Dominican cloisters that 
the most eloquent and expressive testimonies were 
rendered to his memory. In 1267, Brother Nicho- 
las and Brother William of Pisa built a splendid 
mausoleum to the glory of their holy patriarch, whom 
grateful Bologna had adopted as her citizen during 
life, and patron after death. On the back of this 
incomparable monument they sculptured the prin- 
cipal events connected with the origin of the Order. 
The first compartment was dedicated to St. Domi- 
nic, the second to Reginald, his son by predilection. 
Here we see Reginald conversing with his master, 
and promising, his hands clasped in those of St 
Dominic, to embrace the Order of Preachers ; there 



OF ST. GILES. 121 

suddenly attacked by a fever, and borne in the 
arms of a man, who follows St. Dominic, himseli 
saddened at the premature loss of such a son ; again 
miraculously cured by the Blessed Virgin, who, in 
presence of St. Catherine and St. Cecilia, anoints 
him with one hand, while, with the other, she pre- 
sents to him the habit of the Friars Preachers. 
Sculpture and painting have ever represented him 
with the aureola of the blessed, and often with the 
halo of the saint. Fra Angelico, in a picture found 
in the church of the Jesuit Fathers at Cortona, paint- 
ed him on a magnificent seat, with an aureola around 
his head, and a star on his forehead. At the church 
of the Dominican Sisters at Malaga, in two bass-reliefs 
which ornament the sanctuary, he is represented as 
receiving the habit of the Order. At Toledo, in the 
church of the great monastery of the Mother of God, 
his statue, surrounded by rays of glory, is placed on 
an altar. The convent at Dijon possesses, since 1862, 
a beautiful piece of wooden sculpture, of the fifteenth 
century, which represents the most holy Virgin ex- 
tending her royal mantle to cover three saints of the 
Order who kneel at her feet. In a moment we 
recognize, at the side of St. Peter, Martyr, Blessed 
Reginald, who receives the scapular from her hands. 
This has ever been a chosen subject for artists ; it 
has often been reproduced in our churches and 



122 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

cloisters, and in it Blessed Reginald always occupies 
a privileged place. We spoke of the painting at 
Ghent, in our Introduction. At Manrese, Reginald 
figures in the genealogical tree of our founder, with 
rays of glory and the title of Saint, while some others, 
whose veneration has been ratified, bear only the title 
of Blessed. At Wesen, in a picture of the Rosary, 
where are grouped the saints of the Order, he stands 
the first on the left, his head surrounded with an 
aureola. We see him represented in the dormitory 
of Chieri, at Piedmont, in the chapter-house of the 
Jacobins of Toulouse, and at the old St. Sixtus, in 
Rome. Recent discoveries, made in France, Spain, 
and Italy, equally prove that pictures of him ranked 
among the first in popular painting. 

At the commencement of the seventeenth century, 
when the people of Paris could no longer visit his 
tomb in the cloister of Notre Dame des Champs, 
then the first house of Carmel in France, the Friars 
Preachers thought of enhancing his memory by a 
brilliant testimony of veneration. The celebrated 
Father Sebastian Michaelis built, in the street St. 
Honore, a convent which was to be the centre of the 
Congregation d'Occitainie, which he wished to bear 
the name of Blessed Reginald, " who was singularly 
esteemed in Paris. " The project of erecting this 
new convent received such violent opposition, that it 



OF ST. GILES. 123 

was suspended till the eve of the Annunciation, 1613, 
when, by a peremptory decree, the work of the Lord 
was approved by those who are the fathers of justice. 
This terminated the dispute. Those who knew 
of all the malicious schemes against this establish- 
ment, judged the favorable decree of parliament 
to be an especial effect of our Lady's protection, 
and for this reason wished the house to be named 
Convent of the Annunciation of the Virgin. This 
was done ; and, in place of dedicating the church 
under the title of Blessed Reginald, it was conse- 
crated to the Mystery of the Annunciation, — a name 
it still bears. These testimonies lead us to affirm 
that the veneration of Blessed Reginald is legitimate, 
and that we believe it may, with confidence, be 
presented to the Holy See for ratification, since it 
possesses all the conditions required to obtain the 
honor of formal beatification, which are : authen- 
ticity, antiquity, and continuity. It is authentic, for, 
from the time of his death,. Reginald received the 
title of Blessed, and also Saint. The faithful spon- 
taneously invoked his name, honored his tomb, 
and numerous miracles proved the efficacy of his 
intercession. Their devotion became so great that, 
in a short time, his name was drawn from the 
ordinary ranks of the blessed, and placed among the 
most illustrious saints, who, according to Benedict 



124 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

XIV, received from God the mission to protect certain 
determined interests. His proper mission is ad- 
mirably indicated in the anthem and prayer which 
were recited in his honor during the middle of the 
thirteenth century. The annalists of the Order, as 
well as several historians, have recounted his merits 
and virtues during life, his glory and miracles after 
death. Following ihe example of the faithful, they 
were pleased to call him Blessed, Very Blessed 
Reginald, Reginald the Holy, of saintly memory, 
very pure, because of his virginity, ornamented with 
celestial grace, renowned for sanctity, etc. Christian 
art rendered him the same homage, by always re- 
serving for him, as we have seen, a place of honor 
among the saints and blessed of the early days of 
the Order, viz., at the side of the Blessed Virgin 
and St. Dominic. 

This veneration possesses antiquity, for it extends 
back to the thirteenth century, and this proves an ex- 
istence of three centuries anterior to the decree of 
Urban VIII. We need only recall here the fact that 
John XXII, having graciously offered to canonize 
one of the Blessed Dominicans, Benedict XIV did 
not hesitate to mention Reginald as among the most 
illustrious they could present to the Sovereign Pontiff.* 

* Their choice fell on B. Thomas Aquin, " De Canonizatione Sanctorum, " 
lib. i, chap, xxi, p. 12. 



OF ST. GILES. 125 

The continuity of this veneration is not less incon- 
testable. Facts the most authentic, and testimonies 
the most solemn, are so many links that form an un- 
interrupted chain, from the thirteenth century up to 
the present day. If it has experienced, during this 
long duration, the alternatives of light and obscurity, 
of fervor and tepidity, as has the entire Order, and 
even the Church herself, nevertheless, it has never 
been wholly interrupted in the numberless cloisters 
of the three Orders of St. Dominic, unless, perhaps, 
in France, and that only during the bloody Reign 
of Terror, which caused all holy things and sacred 
institutions to disappear. Since the restoration of 
the Friars Preachers, it has taken a fresh spring, 
which increases day by day. Many of the Preachers 
bear his name, which they received either in baptism, 
or at their religious profession, with tenderest senti- 
ments of love. Pere Lacordaire, our Jourdain de 
Saxe, dedicated to him the most delightful and 
affecting pages of his Life of St. Dominic. Pere 
Besson, our Fra Angelico, reserved three medallions 
for him, on the beautiful frescoed walls with which 
he ornamented the chapter-house of the old St. 
Sixtus at Rome, which, in honor of our saintly patri- 
arch, was to form a complete poem, but which, on 
account of the artist's departure for Mossoul, were 
never finished. The eulogy of Blessed Reginald 



126 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

extended even to the church of St. Aignan, where he 
was dean for seven years. A little later on, Abb6 
Baunard, in order to make his memory flourish anew, 
published his life at Orleans. Meanwhile, the Friars 
Preachers at Paris, who have ever had at heart the 
desire to surpass all others in this traditional and 
household devotion, endeavored to discover new 
honors for their Blessed Reginald. A favorable 
occasion soon presented itself. About the end of 
the year 1864, Mgr. Darboy was obliged to withdraw 
from them the hospitality which Mgr. Sibour had 
so generously offered, in 1849, in the convent of the 
Carmelites, in the street Vaugirard. They purchased 
the site of the ancient college of Beauvais, whose 
chapel alone remained in the midst of ruins. The 
building was repaired without delay, and the convent 
was rapidly constructed. Its solemn inauguration 
took place on the 28th of April, 1867. Rev. F. 
Souaillard, happy in seeing his work accomplished, 
pronounced one of those pious and eloquent dis- 
courses, the secret of which he so thoroughly pos- 
sesses. After having rehearsed, with rapid strides, 
the history of our first fathers, he laid the pro- 
gramme of the mission the new Friars Preachers 
would fill in these places, which had been selected 
on account of so many dear and sacred remem- 
brances. The name of Reginald was several times 



OF ST. GILES. 127 

pronounced. " He was," said the orator, "one of 
the glories of the university, before being ours, and 
posterity has given him the title of Blessed ; which, 
let us hope, is but in anticipation of the solemn 
decision of the Church, and that the voice of 
the people shall be the voice of God. A special 
homage was rendered to his*memory in the con- 
vent of St. James, and we will but renew the 
broken tradition." From the following year, his 
legend was represented with that of Blessed Mannes, 
in one of the windows of the sanctuary. His name 
was often recalled to the faithful, and devotion to 
him made rapid progress. On the 1 7th of February, 
1870, a religious ceremony took place in his honor. 
At the end of compline, Very Rev. Father Cormier, 
Provincial of the province of Toulouse, recalled in 
an allocution, full of tact and piety, all that Reginald 
had done for the Order. In terminating, he exhorted 
those present to continue this family tradition. To 
favor the good resolutions this lecture had inspired, 
a picture, attributed to the pencil of the Christian 
artist, M. Hubert Rohault de Fleury, was shortly after 
exposed in the chapel, before which a lighted lamp 
was placed. It represents Reginald cured at Rome, 
preaching in Paris, and paying homage to the 
Blessed Virgin for having bestowed the habit upon 
him. Since that day the faithful are accustomed to 



128 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

kneel before this picture, and invoke his assistance, 
by reciting the anthem and prayer their ancestors, 
years before, recited at his tomb. Finally, on the 
19th of April, 1 87 1, the Very Rev. Master-General 
of the Order charged Very Rev. F. Cormier to col- 
lect all the necessaiy documents regarding Reginald. 
A few months after, the general Chapter of the De- 
flnitors, assembled at Ghent, favorably received the 
proposition of the French Definitors, and, becoming 
the echo and interpreter of all, framed a petition 
that the cause of Blessed Reginald should be taken 
to Rome, to the end that they might obtain the 
confirmation of his immemorial veneration. We 
should then redouble confidence in our petitions and 
prayers, and we may hope soon to have the privilege 
of venerating him publicly on our altars. In this 
hope, and for this end, we have written his Life, — 
a lowly sheaf formed from the gleanings of our 
annals. We offer it, to-day, as a pious homage to 
him who inspired us to undertake it, and whom we 
wished to honor, for he is, after St. Dominic, the 
most glorious ancestor of the entire Order, and, with 
St Dominic, must ever be the Father, Protector, 
and Model of French Dominicans. 



OF ST. GILES. 129 



AUTHORS CONSULTED. 



I. — The chroniclers and historians of the Order, 

of whom the principal are cited by Pere 

Lacordaire, at the end of the Life of St. 

Dominic. 

II. — The historians of the University and the 

Church of Paris. 
III. — Pere Milloni, of the Oratory. 

Vol. I. Blessed Diana d'Andalo. 
Vol. V. Saint Dominic. 
IV. — Pere Senault, of the Oratory. Life of Blessed 

Reginald of St. Giles. 
V. — Hubert : Historical Antiquities of the Church 
of St. Aignan of Orleans. 
Lemaire : Antiquities of the Church and Dio- 
cese of Orleans. 
VI. — Annals of the Carmelites. (MS. of the Carmel 

of the Avenue of Saxony, at Paris. ) 
VII. — National Archives, Registers and Cartoons, L. 
240, Nos. 59, etc. 



I3O LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 



DOCUMENTS. 



"The chapel of St. Aignan stands between 
the two doors of the cloister of Notre Dame, 
having its entrance on the south side, opposite 
a little cemetery, contiguous to the church." (Du 
Breuil, loc. cit., p. 63.) We read in the Gazette 
of France, Nov. 8th, 1867 : "We still point out to 
the curious who seek vestiges of ancient Paris, in 
the isle of the city, the columns, and some remains 
of the chapel of St. Aignan, one of the twenty-nine 
churches and chapels in the neighborhood of the 
metropolitan church, of which, since the end of the 
last century, there remains scarcely a trace. The 
chapel of St. Aignan has, however, not entirely 
disappeared. At No. 19 of the street Basse-des- 
Ursins, on the same street where, at No. 9, may be 
seen the house in which Racine lived, there stands 
a large building, reaching almost to the Chanoinesse, 
and forming the unequal side of the street of the 
Colombe. This building was constructed oft the 
walls of the chapel of St. Aignan. We notice, 
at its entrance, high column^, remarkably sculp- 



OF ST. GILES. I3I 

tured, and ornamented with fabulous animals, 
arches, and the arched forms of vaults. This struc- 
ture is at present used for a stable. The religious 
structure dates back a dozen centuries. It was 
founded by Stephen of Garland, archdeacon of 
Paris, and dean of St. Aignan of Orleans. What 
is most curious in the chapel of St. Aignan is the 
former level of the pavement, which is somewhat 
similar to that of the pavement of Notre Dame : 
this pavement is so deeply buried, that half the shafts 
of the columns are covered with earth. The soil of 
the entire city has participated in this elevation, 
which, at Notre Dame, has buried several steps that 
give access to the court before the church door. 

II. 

Ex tabular io Ecclesicz Sandi Anianu 

(Hubert, loc. cit, Preiwes, p. 112.) 

Reginaldus, Beati Aniani Aurelianensis decanus, 
et universum ejusdem ecclesiae Capitulum. U. P. L. 
I. S. I. D. 

Noverit Universitas vestra quod nos amore Dei et 
pietatis intuitu Amelinam quondam filiam Gaufredi 
Malehue manumisimus ipsam a jugo servitutis quae 
nostrae tenebatur ecclesiae cum suis haeredibus in per- 
petuum absolvcntes ; ita quod in quarterio nostri 
claustri quod jure feodali a nostra movet ecclesia, 



t 



132 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

nec ipsa nee haeredes sui aliquid deinceps potuerint 
reclamare, nisi priori subjici voluerint servituti. Ut 
hoc autem firmum et stabile perseveret, in hujus rei 
testimonium praesens chirographum scribi et sigilli 
nostri charactere fecimus communiri. 

Actum in Capitulo nostro, anno ab Incarnatione 
Domini MCCXII, mense Januario, ordinatis in ec- 
clesia nostra majoribus personis, Roberto cantore, 
Joanne subdecano, Gregorio capicerio, Berterio suc- 
centore. Datum per manus Joannis, subdecani 
nostri. 

III. 

(Hubert, loc. cit, Preuvts, p. 52.) 

Reginaldus, ecclesiae B. Aniani decanus, univer- 
sumque ejusdem ecclesiae Capitulum, omnibus in 
perpetuum. 

Querelas inter nos aliquandiu ventilatas, sicut 
sunt inferius annotatae, de prudentum virorum con- 
silio, volente Domino, decidentes determinavimus 
in hunc modum: Decanus de circata in terra Capi- 
tuli manentium nihil percipit, etc. Nisi vero pro- 
positi summam reddituum infra octavas natalis 
Domini persolvi fecerint, aut competentem rationem 
quare non solvantur reddiderint, in ipsos divinum 
officium omittetur, etc. Act. in Cap. nost. ann. ab 
Inc. D. 1212, mense Novemb. 



OF ST. GILES. I33 

IV. 

(Hubert, loc. cit., p. 53.) 

ReginalduSy B. Aniani, decanus et universum ejus- 
dem ecclesiae Capitulum, omnibus P. L. I. in Dom- 
ino salutem. 

Quoniam fragilis et caduca est humana memoria, 
nisi litterarum adminiculo sustentatur, praesenti scrip- 
to notum facimus universis quod Gilo de Berdis, 
quondam subdecanus noster, sex cameras sitas juxta 
ecclesiam S. Sergii cum viridario ejusdem ecclesiae 
appendente, imo et unum arpentum vinearum apud 
S. Joannem de Broes, intra vineas S. Evurtii consti- 
tutum, quae omnia de rebus quas, adjuvante Dom- 
ino, in vita sua acquisierat, emerat ad opus servito- 
rum altaris Sancti Georgii, infra nostrae ecclesiae 
septa constituti, qui ibidem ob remedium animae 
suae et patrum suorum, divinum officium celebrabunt, 
ecclesiae nostrae pia devotione in perpetuum contulit 
et concessit : eo scilicet tenore, quod Stefanus nepos 
ipsius, qui in nostra ecclesia praebendam dimidiam est 
adeptus, haec omnia quandiu nostrae ecclesiae canoni- 
cus aut dimidius aut integer fuerit et presbyter, 
possidebit ; si vero in nostra ecclesia ipsum contigerit 
integrari, in praedicto altari B. Georgii, nihilominus 
pro remedio animae praedicti Gilonis, et pro omnium 
fidelium requie Domino ministrabit. 

Eo vero cedente, vel decedente, et ad memorati 



134 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

altaris servitium instituti sacerdotis et beneficii dona- 
tio ad sacerdotes canonicos nostras ecclesiae devolvatur, 
qui ibidem divinum celebraturos officium, prout est 
superius taxatum, ordinabunt. Ut igitur haec omnia 
stabilitate gaudeant inconcussa, vel ne futuris tempo- 
ribus, cujuspiam calumniante malitia, rescindatur, in 
testimonium hujus rei praesentes litteras scribi et 
sigilli nostri charactere fecimus communiri. Actum 
in Capitulo nostro, anno ab Inc. Domini 12 12, 
mense Novembri. 

V. 

Ex charta monasterii Miciacencis* 

(Hubert, loc. cit., Preuves.) 

Ego Reginaldus,^. Aniani Aurel. decanus, et uni- 
versum ejusdem ecclesiae Capitulum, omnibus P. L. I. 

N. F. quod abbas et conventus S. Maximini sep- 
tem solidos et obolum minus de censu quos apud 
claustrum nostrum habent, nobis et ecclesiae nostrae 
tali modo in perpetuum concesserunt, quod eundem 
censum in duplum pro revelationibus annis singulis 
reddere tenebuntur, et ita tarn pro censu illo quam 
pro revelationibus eundem censum ipsis annis singu- 
lis duplicabimus, etc. Actum in Capitulo nostro, 
anno ab Incarnatione Domini 12 16, mense Decemb. 

* De Saint- Maximin ou Saint-Mesmin, dans le Val-de-Micy, pr6s 
d'Orleans. 



OF ST. GILES. 135 

VI. 

(Hubert, loc. cit, Preuves, p. 43.) 

Reginaldus, B. Aniani Aurel. decanus, et univer- 
sum ecclesiae Capitulum, omnibus P. L. I. I. D. S. 

Noverit Universitas nostra quod Manasses, ecclesiae 
nostrae nutritius, in Albigetum quondam peregre 
proficiscens, quintam partem domus suae, quam 
apud portam Renardi, jure haereditario, possidebat, 
ob remedium animae suae et parentum suorum, 
ecclesiae nostrae in eleemosynam contulit et concessit, 
etc. Volentes igitur ut haec stabilitate gaudeant in- 
concussa,etc. 

Actum in Capitulo nostro, anno Dominicae Inc. 
1 2 14, mense Novembri, ordinatis in nostra ecclesia 
majoribus personis, Roberto cantore, Joanne sub- 
decano, Gregorio capicerio, Berterio succentore. 

VII. 

Souvenirs of St. Dominic at Sand a Maria delta 
- . Mascareila. 

The following souvenirs have been piously 
gathered, and faithfully preserved by the last cure 
of this church. At the left of the portico we see 
on the wall an ancient picture, which represents 
St. Dominic, with an aureola and a beard ; under 
this picture is the following inscription : 



I36 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

anno Mccrvm 

DOMIXICUS GUZMAXUS PATER, 

ROMA HISPANIAM PETEXS, 

HIS 5DIBUS SUBSTrTIT, 

CUBICULUMQUE, 

HONORI EJUS A MAJORIBUS COXSECRATUM, 

ET INSIGNIA MANENT MIRACULORUM 

TANTI HOSPITIS, 

CUJUS IMAGINE M 

DE VETERI SIGNO 

QUOD IN DOMO BIANCONI (a) ASSERVATUR, 

EXPRESSAM, 

DEVOTI SANCTITATE EJUS, 

MEMORLE RELIGIONIS CAUSA 

DEDICAVIMUS. 

NOIS JUNII MDCCCLIII PAROCHTS FECIT. 

Back of the main altar there are several fragments 
of the table at which Sl Dominic was seated when 
he worked the miracle already related. This also 
bears the inscription : 

Deposito ddia tavola di S. Domenico. 

ASSERES HX MX>=A Ha>"CE 5TZZ?. :£E>*SAS£, 

DOMTS1CI PATBIS.LEGIFEB.I h^CLIX) OLIM CIBO ETPPETErrE, 

ET SODALim PAHH PBODIGTAT.T 

QU.E fteejlt rs* iDiBrs PBoyrvns ad pkeces mag>-i rxDJEDrrci, 
hospittzm: s^cnssraoBUM a^geijs smrcsTBAxnETs, 

cosTUBEByio z:rz:_ zr stdazzbus 

AB. A. 121S AT. A. 1221 HOyXSTATIt. eUTTXCIT. 



OF ST. GILES. I37 

Beneath a miraculous picture, which is near the 
sacristry, we read : 

HONORI 

MARLE SANCTiE 

A ROSARIO. 

IMAGO 

prodigialis 

qvm 

dominicum patrem legiferum * 

in preces effusum, 

uti veteri fama traditum est, 

BEAVIT. 

VIII. 

(Inedite.— Archives Rationales, Begistres et Cartons, L. 240, No. 59,) 
Honorius episcopus, servus servorum Dei. 
Dilectis filiis Fratribus Ordinis Praedicatorum, 
salutem et apostolicam benedictionem. Vestris pos- 
tulationibus inclinati, auctoritate praesentium indul- 
gemus ut in ecclesia quam dilecti filii Magistri 
Parisienses vobis apud Parisius contulerunt, divina 
officia celebretis. 

Datum Viterbii, kalendis Decembris, Pontificatus 
nostri anno quarto. 

IX. 

(Inedite.— Archives Nationales, Registres et Cartons, No. 60.) 

Honorius episcopus, servus servorum Dei, 



I38 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

Dilectis filiis Sancti Dyonisii et Sancti Germani de 
Pratis Prioribus, Parisiensis dioecesi, et Cancellario 
Mediolanensi, Parisius commorantibus, salutem et 
apostolicam benedictionem. Cum dilectis filiis 
Priori et Fratribus Ordinis Praedicatorum duxerimus 
indulgendum, ut in quadam ecclesia in Beati Jacobi 
honorem constructa quam habent Parisius liceret eis 
officia celebrare divina, Capitulum Parisiense, sicut 
accepimus, quominus id faciant impedire praesumit. 
Unde cum ipsos non deceat dictos Priorem et 
Fratres super hoc, praesertim contra Sedis Apostolicae 
indulgentiam, impedire, quibus potius deberent im- 
pendere subsidium et favorem, cum non causa tem- 
poralis lucri, sed pro divini nominis cultu desiderent 
in capella celebrare praedicta,. ipsos rogandos duxi- 
mus attentius et monendos, nostris dantes sibi lit- 
teris in mandatis, ut jam dictos Priorem et Fratres 
in ecclesia ipsa in qua nondum exstitit, quibusdam 
prohibentibus, celebratum, juxta sibi concessam 
indulgentiam, libere celebrare permittant. Alias 
habentes eos taliter commendatos, quod eorum no- 
vella plantatio, quam speramus fructum multiplicem 
allaturam, rore suae beneficentiae irrigatam, cujus 
coalescat, ideoque ipsi ad cumulum proficiant prae- 
miorum. Quocirca discretionem vestram per apo- 
stolica scripta mandamus, quatenus super iis et 
indemnitate ipsius Capituli et circumadjacentium 



OF ST. GILES. 139 

ecclesiarum provideatis prudenter, sicut videritis 
expedire, facientes quod statu eritis per censuram 
ecclesiasticam firmiter observare. Quod si non 
omnes iis exequendis potueritis interesse, duo ves- 
trum ea nihilominus exequantur. 

Datum Viterbii, III idus Decembris, Pontificates 
nostri anno quarto. 

X. 

The 29th of July, in the following year, the pope 
wrote to the chapter of Notre Dame, to congratulate 
them for having granted the petitions of the Friars 
Preachers, and recognized their rights : 

Honorius episcopus, servus servorum Dei, dilectis 
filiis Capitulo Parisiensi, salutem et apostolicam 
benedictionem. 

Gaudemus in Domino et in vestris laudibus gloria- 
mur quod vos et ad obediential bonum pronos, et 
ad pietatis studia promptos, sicut decet devotos filios 
invenimus, per quod Deo gratos, Nobis acceptos 
et hominibus vos redditis merito commendandos. 
Cum enim vobis nuper preces direxerimus et man- 
data, et quibusdam vestrum, in praesentia nostra 
constitutis, injunxerimus viva voce, ut dilectos filios 
Fratres Ordinis Prsedicatorum, habentes in visceribus 
charitatis, eis in capella Sancti Jacobi, quam habent 
Parisius, celebrare divina et cimeterium permitteretis 



140 LIFE OF BLESSED REGINALD 

habere, vos, sicut ex laeta relatione didicimus, man- 
datum nostrum et eorum desiderium implestis libera- 
liter et libenter; ita quod ex ipso affectu videmini 
multum effectui gratiae adjecisse, super quo devo- 
tionem vestram dignis in Domino laudibus commen- 
dantes, Universitatem vestram rogamus, monemus 
et hortamur attente, ac per apostolica vobis scripta 
mandamus, quatenus continuantes gratiam erga eos ? 
ipsos favorabiliter foveatis, ab eo digna vicissitudinis 
praemia recepturi, qui eos ad profectum Ecclesiae 
generalis, in ministerium Evangelii segregans, quod 
uni ex ipsis fit sibi reputat esse factum, ac Nos qui 
eosdem sincera complectimur in Domino caritate 
habituri magis ac magis favorabiles ac benignos. 

Datum apud Urbem Veterem, IIII kal. Augusti, 
Pontificatus nostri anno quinto. 

This Bull is found in the Large Pastoral, MS., in 
large folio, page 568 (National Archives, L. L. 175), 
and in Volume V of the Collection of Registers of 
France, page 392, published by M. Guerard, of the 
Institute. The preceding Bulls ratify that which 
has been said by Echard (I, page 17, L.) on this 
important question. 



OF ST. GILES. 141 

XI. 

(Inedite. — Archives NatiGnales, loc. tit, No. 62.) 

Honorius episcopus, servus servorum Dei. 

Dilectis filiis Priori et Fratribus Ordinis Praedica- 
torum. 

Cum spiritus fervore concepto abjeceritis munda- 
nas sarcinas facultatum, et calceati pedes in prae- 
parationem Evangelii, disposueritis in abjectionem 
voluntariae paupertatis, officium gerere praedicandi 
pro aliorum salute, multis vos laboribus et periculis 
exponentes. Nos speramus quod labor vester fruc- 
tum sit multiplicem allaturus. Ideoque indigentias 
et labores, quos passuri estis pro hujusmodi officio 
exercendo, vobis pro satisfactione vestrorum injun- 
gimus peccatorum. 

Datum Viterbii, 2 idus Decembris, Pontificatus 
nostri anno quarto. 

XII. 

(Inedite. — Archives Nationales, Nos. 65, 66.) 

Honorius episcopus, servus servorum Dei. 

Dilectis filiis universis Magistris et Scholaribus 
Parisius commorantibus, salutem et apostolicam 
benedictionem. Gratum gerimus et acceptnm, 
quod, sicut accepimus, dilectos filios Fratres Ordinis 
Praedicatorum, in sacra pagina studentes apud 
Parisius, habentes in visceribus caritatis eos vestrae 
pietatis officiis laudabiliter confovetis, per quod 



: - 1 LIFE OF BLESSED REGIXALD OF ST. GILES. 

gratum Deo vos prsestare obsequium arbitramur. 
Quia cam bona ecclesiastica soli Deo sint ascripta, 
nee unquam possnnt officiosins dispensari quam cum 
eis exinde misericorditer subvenitur, qui salutem 
hominum sitientes, ad hoc hanriii gestiunt aquam 
in gaudio de fontibns Salvatoris, nt earn dividant 
in plateis, non solum ad refectionem sitientium 
an: mi rum. verum e::im 2.1 n:rn::u:n :nfrziar.~un: 
an::i::u— square. U; :ri:u: sincerum ife::u~ 
::t:: id r:^i::::? Fnres ~2.:e~u5 rlenius c:-r- 
r.rsca::?. Universintem vesmm rcj'iniim duximus 
et monendam, per apostolica scripta mandantes, 
quantum sicut laudabiliter inchoastis, eos ob iever- 
er.::i:n A::s:i::.c seiis e: Xrs:::.— . r.^'ztT.zts p:> 
pensius commendatos. ipsis beneficentiae vestrae 
i extendi prrririris. iu :u:i Deux: ;:::::iu-. e: 
N : s vobis exinde magis ac magis reddatis iavoiabiles 



erbii, quarto Va1**infag Martii, Pontifi- 

ano quarto. 

e e: — erne /late: 

r Priori d tvmauUmi S 



IX. :u: r.e se ::: 

cain. 



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